Janet & Goldie "Poor Law payments? I learned a while back that Inland Revenue and Pensions records are destroyed when the subject dies so its not worth checking to see if maintenance had been declared." If you can get to Edinburgh one source is the Sheriff Court Records - those responsible for administering the Poor Law would try to find someone else or another parish to pay the costs of support. Often this meant getting the mother to sue the putative father for inlying expenses and maintenance of the child until the age of 12, and the expenses of the process. The case would be under the name of the mother - "Poor ..". These cases are relatively common from the late 1790s, though I suspect that often the families made their own private arrangements. Whether the father paid is a different matter. Poor Law records are local rather than national records and have often survived. John