Genealogy Chat

Just a mo.

Omg, I have found the birth cert of my dad's (supposed) twin brother. Mum swore she hadn't kept it, but I have just found it! Shaking a bit at the moment! The very tricky question is - what happened to this boy? Dad's elder brothers and sisters have no memory of twins being born, which suggests the child was 'adopted' at birth or very soon after. If that is the case, would my grandparents have registered him as theirs 2 months after he was born? We did some checking when we first discovered the existence of this child, and apparently there is no death registered for him during the 5 years after his birth. At that time, dad was still alive and was so shocked by the discovery that we couldn't pursue it further without upsetting him. We have since come across evidence that one of dad's younger brothers may also have had a 'disappearing twin', but this time without a birth certificate. Just to complicate it a bit further, dad (and this child) were born in rural Southern Ireland in the 1920's. From what I have heard of the family, they weren't inclined to do things by the book. Any ideas would be gratefullly received as I can't even think straight right now! Bev x

did you see the bbc website yesterday about a woman who came to England 48years ago she had twin babies and the nurses took one of the babies away from her, she did not know who to turn to to help her and so she had to accept the situation, but did spend time looking for her daughter, that she has just been reunited with. It must have been a moving moment for her. Perhaps the baby was brought up by someone they knew but it is before the date of formal adoptions, so may be hard to trace. Can you find out who the village midwife was at the time and see if anyone connected with the village knows if she gave babies to families that could not conceive naturally, if the mother was too ill after the birth to cope with twins? would any village Church records have any info about this if the Church helped organise which family the baby went to? Good luck! p.s. My Nana (Irish) only found out she was adopted in about the last 10years of her life. She looked nothing like her sisters who were so big. I've yet to unravel that mystery. Claire

Bev have you tried the GRO in Ireland they may be able to help. http://www.groireland.ie/ Georgina.

Georgina, I think the Irish GRO have helped as much as they can, I don't think there is anything else they can do. Claire, it is my gut feeling that the baby(ies) were given away at birth.... they were dirt poor and could barely afford one extra mouth to feed let alone two. Even if there were official adoption procedures then, I doubt that my grandparents would have followed them So if that was the case and the child was handed, at birth, to a childless couple or whatever, never to be mentioned again (no one in the family knew about this!) why on earth did they register the child as theirs two months later??? I don't ever expect to find any real information on this, it was over 80 years ago now, but it feels very close to home and I just need to make some sense of it. Bev x

Might the baby have only been adopted after it had been weaned? Otherwise, it would have needed a wet nurse. I was interested to see from Jane Austen's biography that her mother loved the first few months of her children's lives, but as soon as they were big enough to be a nuisance, they were farmed out, only returning to the family when they were old enough to behave themselves (about 7 years old or so, I seem to recall). Can't see us getting away with that now!

Perhaps the other family were just going to look after the child and not bring it up as their own? That was why the birth parents still registered him as theirs and then after a while the situation was just left as it was, with the other family bringing the child up that he eventually took their name? Have you tried to find a marriage for the child after about 20years or so after the birth, incase he did not take someone else's name? What was the name of the baby, if you don't mind letting us know? Claire

I've sent you a message Claire. If the child had been registered a few days, or even a week after birth, it might have made sense, but the length of time doesn't seem to add up. And why the secrecy? All the children were born at home - dad was the 6th pregnancy - he had sisters 10 and 12 years older than him - but they knew nothing about it. So presumably, the child didn't go to a local family, or something would have been said! Bev x