speaking of bastards ...

Dad's grandmother (b. 1860) & granddaughter of our convict had the word ILLEGITIMATE written boldly across the space for date & place of parent's wedding on her birth certificate. Her younger siblings were not so unlucky (parents told a fib!) & parents were finally able to marry when their oldest daughter was 25 (their spouses had died by then). I wonder if their children were at the ceremony.

When I found Gran's certificate in the archives, I knew my father would not be worried, but I was concerned how his 70 year old Catholic spinster cousin would react. Fortunately she was a modern spinster, not an old-fashioned Catholic old maid, & merely wondered if Grandm would have known. She realised that Gran would have as she was a nurse & would have needed her birth certificate to get a job.

ancestor hunting can be fun.

sandra