Genealogy Forum UK

My brother and I have been researching our family tree. We have found out that we are descended from an illegitimate member of the family, who was passed off as being the child of the actual grandparents. We have no problem with that, it was 150 years ago and we are glad our ancestors kept the child in the family. HOWEVER the family member concerned went on to marry and have a large legitimate family. We have now found out that the modern descendents of the legitimate branch are researching their family tree. Almost certainly, because of time scales and how it was handled at the time, they are not aware of our existence. Should we try to contact them and if so how?

Yes I would contact them, they will probably be very pleased to find new relations. If they have done their homework they must realise from the Census that there was another child, it's not something a good genealogist would miss. Just contact them and say you are connected to their family line, and leave the details until you hear back from them. As you say 150 years is an awful long time ago!!

HTH from Linell.

I agree with Linell and contact them, we had the same thing happen in our family and the illegititmate members contacted us and we have been able to swap photo's and info.

We were already aware of them and purchased the birth certificates to see what they said and who the father was etc. so they may have done the same.

Annie

I agree with Linell but I would do a very softly softly aproach. It was a long time ago but some people do feel odd about it,

I helped a friend a few years ago doing his family tree. It was soon noticed there were other children here in England. He knew his father was from England but his father never talked about life there, hes from New Zealand.

He did make contact and luckily all turned out well
Him visiting England to meet his half siblings and now one is over in NZ at the moment meeting the ones he has never met!

Oh such a lovely story.

I hope your turns out well. Let us know.
Jo

I agree with Lin's aproach. Just say at first that you are descended from the next generation back, if you see what I mean, and then if they are interested in pursuing the connection you can explain more. I doubt very much if anyone will be bothered in this day and age but it can't hurt to be careful.
I'm on the illegitimate side of NL's family - her gtgtgrandfather is my gtgrandfather and he was a probably a drunken woman-beater but we can't choose our rellies can we?

You had to go back 150 years to find a bastard?

You lucky lucky 6th generation decendant of a bastard!

Honestly, the number of legitimate births or post marital conceptions you think you have is always an over-estimation.

Have close look and see how many 1st borns pop out 5 or 6 months after the marriage!

Any relatives you contact will be distant cousins so you have no claim to any inheritance.

The only time I have seen people react badly to learning the have new cousins/siblings is when they think the person contacting them is after something financial.

I have never heard anybody get upset over illigetimate births from generations ago.

gardener wrote:I agree with Lin's aproach. Just say at first that you are descended from the next generation back, if you see what I mean, and then if they are interested in pursuing the connection you can explain more. I doubt very much if anyone will be bothered in this day and age but it can't hurt to be careful.
I'm on the illegitimate side of NL's family - her gtgtgrandfather is my gtgrandfather and he was a probably a drunken woman-beater but we can't choose our rellies can we?

But thanks to him you and I know each other!
and I know you have loved introducing me to genealogy coz xx

It was the genes pulling us together NL, we would have got to known each other some how, I'm sure!

I think the illegitimacy rate varies a bit depending on on circumstances. My mum's family is all from one area of Derbyshire, going back as far as I am able at least. I helped out on a one-name study there too and was surprised that almost all first babies came along at the time to fit with conception in wed-lock. And the couples did not marry particularly young either.

Here in Iceland illegitimacy has been less of an issue so my in-laws have very complicated trees. A genetic research company did a big DNA study and concluded that in Iceland almost all eople have the "correct" father connected to them. They concluded that Icelandic woman must have been good at book-keeping through the ages!

I don't think the other branch can have any idea honestly, our ancestor was born when his mother was a teenager. He lived in his grandparents house with the rest of the very large family, some his own age and was brought up to think of his grandparents as his parents. That is who he names on his wedding certificate. His mother married 8 years later and had a large family. If you were a descendent on her side of the family you would trace her back to her parents and her marriage but you would have no reason to start looking for an illegitimate child born some years before her marriage. There is nothing on the census returns to connect our ancestor to his mother. He continued to live with his grandparents who raised him as their own son, after his mother married.

There is another possibly more delicate issue. My ancestor's father had a skilled trade and so did all his children and their husbands with the exception of the daughter who was my ancestor. She worked in a series of low paid unskilled jobs and married an unskilled man. They had a large family and seem to have been very poor, with little money or prospects. There are also indications that she had little if any contact with her family after her marriage. The little boy may have been taken in but we get the feeling that once she was married she was cut off by the family. Her children similarly went into unskilled jobs. So they slipped down the social scale.

Her illegitimate son, my ancestor, on the other hand, benefited from living with his grandparents. He was apprenticed into a job with a skill and married the daughter of a skilled tradesman. Sadly he died in the first World War. His son who was very bright, was articled in the City of London, which was paid for his maternal grandparents. We are descended from him. I am a bit nervous that the current generation if contacted, may resent the relatively better opportunities my side of the family enjoyed while their side was stuck in a Victorian poverty trap. There may even have been bad feeling as this daughter and her marriage were never mentioned, let alone an illegitimate child. it was almost as if she was removed from the family record. Do you think I am over reacting?.

Presumably you know about the illegitamacy because it is on your ancestor's birth certificate ---if the other family are serious about their family history they can send for the certificate like you did and would find out that way whether you have told them or not-- -- other thought is that anyone who sets out to look into their family history must be prepared to find skeletons in their cupboard even if they are live ones!

Maths girl wrote:Presumably you know about the illegitamacy because it is on your ancestor's birth certificate ---if the other family are serious about their family history they can send for the certificate like you did and would find out that way whether you have told them or not-- -- other thought is that anyone who sets out to look into their family history must be prepared to find skeletons in their cupboard even if they are live ones!

Oh yes - my mom was shocked when we found out that her dad and his two brothers were illegitimate, the family just thought he had gone to war. He is even named as William on the marriages of two of them

Do you think I am over reacting?.

Over thinking it maybe? If these people are looking at their family history then they are interested in it and it is what it is. They can either be proud of the progress made on their side of the family since then, or they can just shake their head in dismay that their ancestor was treated like that. Either way it happened in the past.
I'm fairly sure that they will be happy to find more relatives. I certainly am even if mine are all of the distant sort. I love the idea of being part of a tree that branches out and although I am saddened that my grandfather had a pretty miserable childhood and poor working conditions down a mine, then I am also proud that my father got out of the mine, took a university degree and was a teacher.

I know that a some of my paternal grandmothers family were wealthy, but she had it hard growing up. I do wonder why one part was well off and another not, but I don't resent any thing. One part of my mothers family moved up north and became very wealthy, most of that part of the family worked in the family business - they couldn't have employed everyone though.
My very working class maternal grandmother ended up with a good pension and owning her own home, something that her parents couldn't have dreamed of, about half of her siblings did too. Her brother owned his own business which I think is still going today. Their schooling was limited but they all had a good life and that's the most important thing.
I expect to find skeletons somewhere, although they've not been very evident yet! I have a lot of kids born soon after the weddings of their parents. One of my ancestors had several children with varying fathers, another had a child a year after her husband died. I suspect it was more common than we realise. I don't think of these things as shameful as such, it was just how things were.

When I informed my aged uncle that his parents had never married, he just grinned and said ....'so what they've been calling me all these years was true!!'.
We had a good laugh about it. 150 years is a long, long time and those involved are long dead. If it was me, I'd love to hear from you.

MarionL wrote:When I informed my aged uncle that his parents had never married, he just grinned and said ....'so what they've been calling me all these years was true!!'.
We had a good laugh about it. 150 years is a long, long time and those involved are long dead. If it was me, I'd love to hear from you.

the way you got to look at it if it wasnt for them you wouldnt be here