Year Without a Summer

Recently I was talking with a genealogical colleague about doing a talk about natural phenomena and their effects on families and communities. He brought up the subject of the Year Without a Summer and its impact on his ancestors who had migrated to North America.

I do mention the event in some of my talks. I covered it in my book, Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests. But I have not paid a lot more attention to it in terms of how it affected various localities.

Maybe because of the more recent date of the event, at least in terms of human history, there is a great deal of information in books, articles, scientific studies and newspapers. Much of this material was produced by and for local consumption and thus has value in looking at people and communities where our ancestors lived and worked. The Year Without a Summer, of course, has to deal with the impact the 1816 Tambora eruption had on weather and climate around the world.

I commented about the event in my book:

What was to affect the entire globe, though, was a cloud of ash and gases rising into the stratosphere containing deadly sulphur dioxide which, when combined with water produced sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) – 100 million tons of it! Jet streams began blowing the cloud to the west. Within two weeks it had surrounded the world at the equator; by July it had spread north and south to reach the poles. The Earth was blanketed by a shadowy, poisonous veil of gas. With cold air trapped beneath the volcanic plumes, clouds could not form, thus rain could not fall to wash the pollution away. It took many years for the sulphur particles to finally drop back to the Earth.

In the meantime, the shroud caused havoc with climatic conditions: sunlight was reflected back into space; temperatures at the surface were cooled, and weather patterns were completely disrupted. The year following the Tambora eruption has been called the “Year Without Summer” because in most parts of the world in 1815, conditions were wet, cold and just plain miserable!

There is evidence in many records illustrating the effects on local communities. Eastern Canada and northeast USA experienced highly unusual weather and winter-like conditions in the spring of 1816 that were widely reported in newspapers and diaries. Later studies and reports offered data and comments about the effects of the ash cloud.

Can you find any references to this event in newspapers or other records in the areas where your ancestors lived?

New York Evening Post, Thursday, June 27, 1816 (Newspapers.com): various reports from NE United States

The Franklin Repository, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 25 June 1816 (Newspapers.com)

Montreal Gazette, Montreal, Quebec, Canada 10 June 1816 (Ancestry.com)

You can read more about the event and its repercussions in many books and articles, and on several websites. For Canadian experiences, read:

Canada’s History: 1816: The Year Without Summer https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/environment/1816-the-year-without-summer

Canada’s History: The Big Chill https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/environment/the-big-chill

Canadian History Ehx: Canada’s Year Without a Summer https://canadaehx.com/2020/07/11/canadas-year-without-a-summer/

Reader’s Digest: The Year Canada Didn’t Have a Summer https://www.readersdigest.ca/culture/1816-the-year-without-a-summer/

 

For Northeastern American experiences, read:

Discover Concord: Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death: The Year Without a Summer https://www.discoverconcordma.com/articles/291-eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death-the-year-without-a-summer

Historic Ipswich: 1816, the Year Without Summer https://historicipswich.net/2020/06/25/1816-the-year-without-summer/

NASA: The year without a summer https://climate.nasa.gov/explore/ask-nasa-climate/183/the-year-without-a-summer/

US National Parks Service: 1816 – The Year Without Summer https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/1816-the-year-without-summer.htm

USGS: New England’s 1816 “Mackerel Year,” Volcanoes and Climate Change Today https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/new-englands-1816-mackerel-year-volcanoes-and-climate-change-today

The Beehive – Massachusetts Historical Society: 1816: the Year Without a Summer https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2016/11/1815-the-year-without-a-summer/

 

For European experiences and explanations, read:

Andrew P Schurer et al. (2019). Disentangling the causes of the 1816 European year without a summer. Environmental Research Letters. 14(9).  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab3a10

 

For general data:

Klingaman, W. K. & Klingaman, N. P. (2013). The Year Without Summer. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 352 pp.

Do an Internet search for “year without a summer” for many more references to the eruption and its effects around the world in articles, books, blogs, newspapers, journals, etc.

Bastards Among Us

The title of this post does not mean that we could be surrounded by nasty people. In genealogical terms, it is a reference to those born out-of-wedlock.

I first wrote about this subject in a post on 26 May 2015: Bastards! (Oops!). Since then, I have found many examples in parish and other records and in my family lines and those I have researched for others.

In the May 2025 issue of Family Tree (UK) magazine, I have an article titled Unhappy Beginnings about illegitimate and foundling children noted in records from the parishes I look after as an Online Parish Clerk. The piece is based on the 2015 post and another one from 25 August 2013, titled Inauspicious Beginnings and Untimely Endings. The latter piece is about children who were born and, in many cases, died under fateful circumstances. Some of these children were orphans, others had only one parent identified.

I have yet to find a family tree for anyone who does not have at least one person whose father cannot be identified or whose parents were not married at the time of their birth. And how many times have we heard someone comment on the time between a marriage and a birth date, giving a wink-wink-nudge-nudge if the period was less than nine months.

The stigma associated with having parents who had not married may have been carried by such children for their entire lives.

Sometimes the humiliation inflicted on both mothers and children began in church, with a minister proclaiming to all the sins of women who had no husband but delivered a child anyway. Probably rarely was a man singled out for such disapprobation.

Even when the parents were married, a cleric might still censure them for having had relations and conceiving a child before the formal nuptials.

Lawful versus Natural

Old Scottish baptism records used terms like “lawfully born” or “lawfully procreated” to indicate the parents were married at the time the child was conceived. Where the term “natural born” was recorded the alternative was the case with respect to marriage vows having been taken well after a baby was on the way.

One of my wife’s great-grandmothers was one of those children, born outside of marriage as described in the entry of her birth and baptism in the Edinkillie, Moray parish register: Walter Scott officer of Excise with Janet Stalker in Knockyphin had their natural daughter Isabel born this 8^th May 1829 & baptised the 8^th April 1830.

There is no evidence showing the parents married or even cohabited. Isabel was given her father’s surname but lived with her mother. Baptism records in the parish indicate that Janet had another child, James Duncan, by another man, in 1835. Again, the entry showed the child to be the “natural son of Alexander Duncan and Janet Stalker.”

Janet Stalker eventually married a man named John Anderson in 1838, however, that union did not produce any children.

After mandatory registration in 1855, birth records would clearly state the child was “illegitimate” if the mother was single and no father was named.

Occasionally a seemingly spiteful minister might record his own opinions as to a child’s birth and the morals of the parents. I found the baptism record for a 2^nd great-grandmother of a good friend which stated that on 15 October 1790, in Lintrathen Parish, Forfarshire, Scotland. John Whitson and Margaret Smith had a child, Janet, baptized who was “begat in antenuptial fornication.” Janet’s parents had married three months prior to her birth, on 19 July 1790, but the minister still felt obliged to publicly call out their indiscretion.

The minister did not just single out this family. He had similar comments about a child baptized the month before, John Cargill, son of David Cargill & Elizabeth Robertson, “begat in fornication.”

Base Children

Early English parish records normally described illegitimate children as “base” or “bastard” and did not identify the father, such as these entries for Cornwood parish in Devon.

Some Anglican ministers refused to baptize a child with a father’s surname if the parents had not married at the time of the child’s birth. This often ended up with the child being recorded later with two surnames whether the parents did marry each other or the woman married someone else.

Unwed mothers in past centuries, or even decades, were often shipped off to relatives. Some were cast out of their families entirely.

Out of Wedlock Births

In my Family Tree article, I note what the history of illegitimate baptisms was in four Devon parishes between 1600 and 1949. On average, just over 5% of births were to unwed mothers with a peak of over 8% in the decades of the late 19^th century.

Period	Total Baptisms in Parishes	Illegitimate and Foundling Baptisms (Four Parish Totals)
		Female	Male	Total	% of Parish
1600-1649	2,846	35	47	82	2.9%
1650-1699	2,702	30	25	55	2.0%
1700-1749	2,737	65	79	144	5.3%
1750-1799	4,064	114	119	233	5.7%
1800-1849	6,504	175	189	364	5.6%
1850-1899	6,874	266	304	570	8.3%
1900-1949	4,896	113	99	212	4.3%
Totals	30,623	798	862	1,660	5.4%

Total baptisms and numbers of illegitimate and foundling children in parish registers of Cornwood, Harford, Plympton St. Mary and Plympton St. Maurice in southwest Devon

Being an unwed mother does not carry the stigma it once had. In recent studies, the proportion has been shown to have increased significantly, most of it during the last 50 years. An article published online in 2017 by Joseph Chamie of Yale University, Out-of-Wedlock Births Rise Worldwide, states that, Out-of-wedlock childbirths have become more common worldwide since the 1960s, but with wide variations among and within countries. Increasing economic independence and education combined with modern birth control methods have given women more control over family planning.

The piece goes on to say that “Many of the children born out of wedlock live in single-parent households, typically headed by single mothers.”

As in the past, many of these single parent households are disadvantaged. The children can be in danger of not receiving high levels of “support and assistance to ensure their health, development and wellbeing.”

The Lesson for Genealogists

It will be rare if not impossible to find a family in your research that does not have a child born out of wedlock. In many cases, as it is in ours, the father may not even be known (or have known?). That results in a major brick wall in investigating a particular family line. DNA tests may help in identifying these ancestors but only if there are sufficient related individuals who agree to be tested.

Guild of One-Name Studies - 2025 Conference

From 25 to April 2025, the Guild of One-Name Studies will host a conference with the theme Gateway to the World. Presentations will focus on the movement of people across the world during past centuries, mainly from Great Britain.

The conference will be a hybrid allowing participants to be present for the talks but also to view them remotely, many livestreamed. The in-person meeting will be held at the Holiday Inn, Liverpool City Centre, England.

More about the event, including the program can be found on the Guild website.

I have been booked to present my talk about Mother Nature’s Impact on Migration & Relocation, online on Saturday, April 26^th at 11:00 pm GMT.

The conference is open to both Guild members and non-members. Come join us if you can, in person or on the conference hub.

Talk Summary:

We can trace the dislocation of families, indeed whole communities, because of war, politics, religious persecution, racial and cultural intolerance, employment or lifestyle prospects, and any of number of other societal-related reasons.

But there were many circumstances where Mother Nature had an important impact on the decisions people made to pick up and leave. Among these are:

·         long-term changes to the environment through climate change,

·         gradual alteration of habitat through natural processes

·         loss of homes, businesses or family members from disasters

The presentation looks at some of the affects Mother Nature has had on lives and livelihoods, and the decisions taken to relocate. Examples will be presented from historical situations as well as from the speaker’s own family.