Hi Sher, Thanks for responding. You wrote in part, "The boarder was in fact her common law husband, but in that area, in that time, people frowned on that relationship and therefore he became the boarder. Perhaps John Evans was her common law husband." I'm guessing that you meant to write John Kinsman rather than John Evans. As I mentioned in a previous email, Ann Evans's examination testimony indicated that at a minimum she had an ongoing sexual relationship with John Kinsman. Whether it was more than that I cannot say from the records I have so far. Either way, the parish expected the child to be chargeable to them. Thanks for the thoughts, Liz Loveland
Common law marriages do not exist under English Law and it was only in the late 20th century that illegitimate children had any claim to inherit. The parish would not allow co-habiting although would force the father to support the child if he was known. In the cities incomers would not be questioned too closeley but in the villages there was no hiding. Paul ________________________________ From: Liz Loveland <lovelandfamilyhistory@gmail.com> To: devon@rootsweb.com Sent: Wednesday, 8 January 2014, 15:04 Subject: Re: [DEV] Tracing mother of an 'illegitimate' child Hi Sher, Thanks for responding. You wrote in part, "The boarder was in fact her common law husband, but in that area, in that time, people frowned on that relationship and therefore he became the boarder. Perhaps John Evans was her common law husband." I'm guessing that you meant to write John Kinsman rather than John Evans. As I mentioned in a previous email, Ann Evans's examination testimony indicated that at a minimum she had an ongoing sexual relationship with John Kinsman. Whether it was more than that I cannot say from the records I have so far. Either way, the parish expected the child to be chargeable to them. Thanks for the thoughts, Liz Loveland ------------------------------------------ The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) and the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) List archive for Devon can be found at http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message