Hello,
Many hundreds of years ago being a bastard was being half-noble. It was far better than
being a serf or peon. You had a chance at least to rise above your assigned station in
life.
In time being a bastard meant you were illegitimate. You were conceived out of wedlock.
Society has changed how they deal and support such children over the ages.
In the 1800s in America, many a young bride was pregnant or thought she was pregnant
before her marriage. Human nature has not changed very much in the last 10,000 years.
There has been better education and technology, but the desire to hook up, so to speak,
remains.
Because of this, sometimes our genetics do not match our genealogy. We call this a NPE or
non-paternal event. The genealogy may be absolutely right, but an adoption, either formal
or informal, has occurred.
Very often a young widow with children re-marries. The children then identify with their
step-father to the point that they no longer think or remember the previous marriage of
their mother. This is the most common reason for a NPE I have seen so far.
The NPE rates of less than 5% have been given quite often. During hardship times that rate
went up to 7% per the info below. Please remember that these rates are say pre-1959ish.
Please remember that during war, forced slavery (not just for African-Americans) or other
conflict sexual assaults soared as those who conquer asserted their will both physically
and mentally.
What happened say 1959ish? The birth control pill became popular and the old rules went
out the window. NPE rates over the next decade or two went much much higher. I will not
detail the reasons of massive changes in societal mores and family breakdown. BUT, it
happened. In some social-ethnic groups – Whose your daddy? - literally became an unknown
until the rise of the effective DNA paternal test.
I hope this information and that which is below is helpful.
John R. Carpenter
Carpenter Cousins Project
http://carpentercousins.com
http://lostcousins.com/newsletters2/midsummer15news.htm#Haymaking
Review: My Ancestor Was a Bastard
At least 3 of my direct ancestors come into this unfortunate category, so I had been
meaning to read My Ancestor Was a Bastard by Ruth Paley, which is one of the excellent My
Ancestor Was... series from the Society of Genealogists, for quite some time. I now wish
I'd read it earlier!
Illegitimacy has always been with us, but the way in which illegitimate children, their
mothers, and their putative fathers have been treated by the legal system has varied
considerably over the years - as a result of which the chance of finding surviving
documentation, and the nature of that documentation changes. Also, it's fairly
well-known that the rate of illegitimacy has varied over the centuries - prior to the 20th
century the peak of 7% was in the mid-19th century - but the author expands on this by
pointing out that between 20-30% of 19th century brides were pregnant on their wedding
day.
I discovered that, because two of my illegitimate ancestors were born between the passing
of the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834 and the introduction of a new system of affiliation
proceedings in 1844, this greatly reduces the chances that I'll ever find any
paperwork that points in the direction of the fathers. But it won't stop me trying -
at least I now have a much better idea of what to look for.
The book also introduced me to the filius nullius rule and demonstrated how this could
operate in the case of an adoption prior to 1927 - it's one of many useful and
fascinating pieces of information to be gleaned from this short but jam-packed work of
reference. If you decide to buy it from Amazon please use one of the following links if
you can:
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com Amazon.ca