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.