Hi Rebecca Further to your enquiry and my response on 26 Oct this may be of interest to you. On BBC2 today a repeat showing of the actor Patrick Stewart's 'Who do you think you are?' explained his own quest for a maintenance record for his older brother born 'out of wedlock' in 1925. Patrick went to the Registry of Deeds in the area that his brother was born (in this case, Wakefield in Yorkshire) and was able to review the carefully documented court case resulting from a Bastardy Application brought by his mother. The programme mentioned the law behind it - the Bastardy Bill of 1920. You can Google this law and discover more. The BBC programme should be available on I-player. Of course this case may not be applicable in your own search but I thought it might be worth mentioning as I got it very wrong in my earlier reply. Incidentally, it was a very interesting programme. Patrick Stewart's parents went on to marry (unhappily) - it was a complicated story and, although it didn't have a fairy-tale ending, as a result of the search and research much healing was able to take place simply through understanding events. Hope this helps. Ruth

How interesting - I realise now that I was also far too pessimistic about the possibilities and completely missed the possibilities of bastardy orders. D'uh. Sorry about that. I think that I mislead myself by thinking of Maintenance Orders only in the context of divorced or separated couples. But orders have been made and documented for illegitimate children for centuries. I've seen such orders in the files of Lancashire Record Office. But I have a vague idea that I have read that survival rates of such orders in Cheshire is not good. Anyone care to comment on that? (especially about the 1850s and 1860s?) Adrian On 29/10/2014 18:38, Ruth Genda via wrote: > ... documented court case resulting from a Bastardy Application brought by his mother. The programme mentioned the law behind it - the Bastardy Bill of 1920. ... I thought it might be worth mentioning as I got it very wrong in my earlier reply. > ...