Hello. I wondered if anyone knows what the process would have been in the early 1900's (although again with another ancestor in the 1830's) for placing an ifant (illegitimate) in foster care with someone else to bring up? Two instances - Matilda Webster whose father was John Webster, and mother of a rather prominent family - Elizabeth Largie of Benholm. Matilda's birth doesn't seem to be registered - though there is another a few years later. I find her in the 1841 census with a Low family along with two other little girsl of 7 and 8 that don't seem to be ralated to the family with whom they are living. All different last names. She was raised closer to Marykirk. Ends up in a mill in mOntrose before marrying my great-great gf Robert McGregor and moving with him to Derry, where he was already settled and working as manager of a starch work. The second, Constance Mary Bowes-Lyon's mother was my Granny's sister, Mary Agnes, Molly, Hay Smeaton. She was conceived in edinburgh, born in London. Shortly after her birth, her mother and an Edinburgh friend set her up to be raised by Mrs. Collie of Aberdeen. As a young adult, Constance realized she was a Bowes-Lyon and took to court to have her name legitimized. Her friend in Edinburgh seems to have arranged the fostering situation in Aberdeen, although I don't know that for certain, only that she helped Molly arrange something. Did some women atke in other children as a way to make things work (receiving possibly some remuneration?). Were they related in some way to the family? One or both? thank you for any help. Roslyn Macgregor in Montreal

> I wondered if anyone knows what the process would have been > in the early > 1900's (although again with another ancestor in the 1830's) > for placing an > ifant (illegitimate) in foster care with someone else to > bring up? I've come across quite a lot of these in the Parochial Board records. The Parochial Boards were set up under an Act of Parliament in 1845, and given the responsibility of looking after the poor of the parish. An illegitimate child would usually be looked after by its maternal grandparents while its mother went back to work. Less often the paternal grandparents might take on an illegitimate grandchild. The parish would only step in if no other arrangement could be made, and would place the child with a suitable household. The foster parents would normally receive a sum of money to care for the foster child, and the parochial boards went to great lengths to find the errant fathers and make them pay for the maintenance of the child. The only way to learn the exact circumstances of a particular child is to find the parochial board records, not all of which have survived, so it may never be possible to get the full story. Anne

Thanks, Anne. Would the parochial board records be for each area? Held in the archives or libray of an area? Say Brechin - or Aberdeen? Some of them may have been personal arrangements, I suppose? But perhaps some kind of connection like a cousin or something? Thanks again, Ros -- Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. - Martin Luther King Jr.