Genealogy Chat

There is an online news article about John Prescott's genealogy revealing a descent from an incestuous relationship
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231971/John-Prescott-breaks-discovers-dark-family-secret.html

One quote: "genealogist Gillian Smith tells him: 'From what I've been told, the daughters took over the roles of the mother when they died, and they took over all the roles of the mother. It was quite common as well.'"

I don't know what is meant by quite common but it did get me thinking that some tree findings can prove quite devastating, even several generations later. I am more shocked by the comments from readers of the article who believe that the descendants of an incest birth are damned forever.

I have found all sorts of skeletons in my own ancestral tree, none of that magnitude fortunately! However, I do occasionally come across something in a branch, eg-someone short for desertion, or someone born 1 year after their "father's" death, etc, which may or may not cause upset to a direct descendant.

Just goes to show, this can turn into a real minefield!

Tracey

I have found out there is a strong possibility that the man my Gt G/Mother married wasn't the father of her 2 children 1 being my G/Dad.......Now while i find it funny my Dad whose Dad it was, found it quite hard to take.

Hi

One quote: "genealogist Gillian Smith tells him: 'From what I've been told, the daughters took over the roles of the mother when they died, and they took over all the roles of the mother. It was quite common as well.'"

Regarding the above quote. Some 20 years ago I worked for a woman and got to know her mother, who was in her 80's, quite well. One day we were talking about a news article about incestuous relationships when she said "if the mother died young, then the father would often turn to the daughters to fulfil ALL the roles of the mother, that's just the way it was" it was that she said it so matter of factly that it quite shocked me. So yes, I think I would agree that it was more common than we realise.

Mary

When I found my grandfather's birth certificate in 1989 (he was born in 1871) I asked my mother why his father wasn't named.

She actually whispered that she didn't think his mother had married his father. Great grandmother did marry later on and granddad had 7 stepbrothers.

What my mother didn't know (I am fairly certain that she didn't, anyway) was that great grandmother had a second illegitimate son and they all ended up in the Workhouse for over a year where the baby died 'of teething'.

Illegitimacy was a matter of shame; it is a word that only dropped out of use just over 30 years ago.

Bird

The absolute wonder of this research is not in finding names but in finding out how people actually lived. I am not aware of any births of children to a daughter/father in my family, but a pretty strong suspicion of a child born to a brother and sister.

And in the late 1960s I had a boyfriend whose father had a child with my boyfriend's sister. So if it happened then, it certainly happened in earlier years - and there is nowt we can do about it.

Margaret