Ancestral Trails by Mark Herber- a large tome on family history, says the rate of illegitimacy between 1837 and 1965 was 4-7%. I assume that is from the percentage of fathers unnamed at birth registration. He says it as about 2% in the 18th century. Both of these figures assume that a named father is the actual father, of course. In the search for the ancestors of Richard 3rd, there were questions raised about the royal blood-line, when the researchers tried to find a living descendant of his family to prove the identity of the skeleton... The press then claimed there was a mismatch at some point in the royal line, so present day royals couldn't be used... A geneticist then said that "The fact that we do not find a match between the living male-line relatives and the skeletal remains is not at all surprising to me. We knew from work that I, and others, have carried out in the past that the incidence of false-paternity, where the biological father is not the supposed father, is historically in the region of 1-2 per cent per generation". In fact they did find a descendant of Richard 3rd's sister, as I recall, who was a match. Margaret On 04/06/2017 10:50, Nicholas.Shorthose--- via DERBYSGEN wrote: I find this a fascinating thread , having a couple of "blanks" or mismatches between birth and marriage cert father's details in my tree. Is any anywhere of academic research on illegitimacy in C18-19s ? Nicholas Shorthose -----Original Message----- From: DERBYSGEN [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nivard Ovington via DERBYSGEN Sent: 04 June 2017 10:17 To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Cc: Nivard Ovington <[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [DBY] Baptisms where father isn't named As others have said, illegitimacy is the most likely reason But have you checked the original parish register entry? Vicars sometimes entered a note in the margin Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 03-Jun-17 3:15 PM, Joan M via DERBYSGEN wrote: Hi, Apart from illegitimacy, is there any other reason that the father wouldn't be named? Thanks Joan ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message