ARC TBC - Can you help me unravel this knotty problem?

[gardener]

It is possible that there were no marriages beyond the Newman one. Ellen Kate could be registered as Grant with or without the say of Henry Grant. Then, if the adults separated she would revert to using the Newman name. Nothing unusual in that. Keep looking for marriages to either Grant or Fitch but if Ann was back to using the Newman name by 1901 I think she probably only married the once.

[usignuolo]

I did wonder if Ann married more than once but the 1881 census definitely says Wife at the time when she was, we think, married to Henry Grant, as it did when she was married to John Newman. On the other hand, the field for Wife is left blank when she was living with Fred Finch. So I am inclined to think John Newman died and she remarried, a bit too hastily, to Henry Grant. Then left him for Fred Finch.

I am calling her the Bolter, my brother rather more charitably refers to her as the Merry Widow. Ellen Kate Grant-Newman was jolly enough, but no heart breaker. I would love to have a photo of Ann, when we can get it all untangled, I might start chasing up lines of enquiry. maybe with the Drew family if we are right on that being her ancestors.

I am not fancying find out more about Henry Grant however, given the way his family set about brushing him out of the picture. By 1901 both John and Henry seemed to be dead but not Fred Finch who was living with a member of his family as their Father in the 1901 census. While Ann was living down the road as the Widow Newman. More to uncover yet I think

[MarkCDodd]

Just a comment on that 7% illegitimate figure for the late 19th Century.

The records for the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia show that between 1856 and 1912, over 50% of the births were to unmarried women.

The hospital catered for the same level of poverty you would find around the Black Country for the same period so I would assume the figures would be the same.

Also have a look at how many "instant babies" there are.

i.e. First born with 4 or 6 months of marriage.

"Wrong side of the blanket" births are a fact of life in the middle and late 19th century and anybody who expects to find their family free of them is in for a shock.

[usignuolo]

I agree that 7% illegitimacy rate in Victorian England in the late 19c seems impossibly low, at least judged by my own family, who were essentially respectable working and lower middle class. However, in an interview about her work on the "demoralisation" of the working class, Gertrude Himmelfarb of the Acton Institute states that :"One of the extraordinary facts about Victorian England, was the low illegitimacy rate. Around 1845 the illegitimacy ratio was 7%; by the end of the century it had come down to less than 4%. In the poorest part of London, east London, it was 4% at its peak and 3% by the end of the century. Remember, this was a time of enormous political, economic and social turmoil: the industrial revolution, the cultural revolution, urbanism and so on. And yet it in spite of all these difficulties, illegitimacy was considerably reduced and the English emerged from this period in a state of re-moralization - in dramatic contrast to our present situation where illegitimacy rose from 5% in 1960 to nearly 30% today. "

I do wonder if this can really be accurate. My paternal grandfather on my father's side was illegitimate (although raised by his grandparents as their own). My maternal grandmother on my father's side, had an illegitimate child before she later married to someone else. On my mother's side we still do not know if her maternal grandmother (Ellen Kate) was married to Henry Grant or not. And in any case Ellen Kate's mother had children by three different men and she was not married to the last one. Also my paternal great grandmother on my mother's side was illegitimate - her mother had two children before she married someone else. I suppose there might be more.

I don't care about any social stigma, not at all, I am not a religious or judgmental person. I even spoke to a long term resident, extremely old, of the village where my mother and her ancestors grew up and asked her if the family were the local "scamps". Not at all she said, just very numerous! But with such a high incidence in my family tree (and all the children were kept by their families not given up for adoption), one does wonder how accurate the above figures really are.
It does make it frustrating though trying to trace the family tree though.

[Maths girl]

I would suggest that the difference is between the official figures ie those collected via actual birth certificates, marriage certificates etc and what was actually accepted as fact at the time -- remember census records etc were only a reflection of what the people themselves answered -- no-one went to check whether Mr & Mrs A had actually got married in village B -- and when! Computers have changed the way we view facts and follow them up.

I am aware of a couple who celebrated their golden wedding a year early in the late 1980's to keep up the fact that they had been married for a year + a few months rather than a year less rather too many months before their first child was born.

I think that as the Victorian Age progressed that more emphasis was put on not accepting that there was so much sex before marriage and illegitimacy by hiding the facts for long enougth that they became "truths". This went on in some families well into the 20th century. My mother was adamant that no-one had sex before marriage in her youth but simultaneously could talk about the gossip that surrounded the "illnesses" that some girls had!

[BC Wench]

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