Are you sure that the Ann Saunders who is the mother of Richard Page is the same Ann who is the wife of Philip Saunders? She could be a different single woman, maybe even a relative of Philip and Ann who stayed with them for the confinement. Or, is it certain that Philip was still alive when Ann baptised Richard Page? It is quite usual for widows to continue using their married name after their husband's death. As I said recently, I have two instances in my family tree where the middle name given to a baseborn child is clearly the father's name because the women concerned then married a man with that name as a surname. However, it was also common for the mother's surname or a grandparent's surname to appear as a middle name and I also have an example where a godparent's name was the middle name, although these instances have always appeared with a legitimate birth. There is a marriage of Richard Page Sanders in 1813 to Cecily Parsons. https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KCSD-L93 Joy ________________________________ From: Blaine Sanders <utvairs@yahoo.com> To: "devon@rootsweb.com" <devon@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, 4 December 2013, 16:14 Subject: [DEV] Baptized as "Base" son/daughter A couple of weeks ago, as I was piecing together an ancestral family from the Plymouth area, I came across a son from a marriage that was listed as "Richard Page Base son of Ann Saunders and ?" At first, I couldn't make out the "e" on the end of "Base", and I thought perhaps it was an abbreviation of "Baptized" or "B*stard". But then as I continued going through later entries in the registry, I started seeing a lot more of the same word, more legibly written as "Base". These entries either only listed the mother as the parent, or the mother and a father with a different surname. So at this point I have conclusively decided that Richard Page was indeed an illegitimate child from an extra-marital relationship. The interesting thing is that this son came along after 4 previous siblings, and 3 other siblings proceeded him, all through Ann's husband, Philip Saunders. So he obviously knew of the affair and stayed with her. Kudos to him. Anyway, that's all mostly irrelevant information. What I'm interested in knowing is if "Page" would possibly be Richard's biological father's surname? Would it have been customary to list the illicit father's surname like this, or would it more likely have been a middle name? I found a marriage of a Richard Page in the same parish roughly 20 years later, but no Richard Page Saunders. Opinions? Thank you, Blaine Sanders ------------------------------------------ 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
Hi Ann Adding a father's name was not a matter to be undertaken lightly. By so doing the father was then going to come under substantial pressure for financial support for the child and also (depending largely on when) they could also be subject to proceedings in a Church court. The vicar would almost certainly be among the ratepayers and also quite likely to be on the Board of Guardians for the Poor Law and as such would want to make sure the father was correctly identified so the child did not become a charge on the rates. I have often found against entries for christening a child with just the mother's name listed "base child"-or one of the other euphemisms- and then "Putative father Joe Bloggs". The putative father could accept it and then have a support rate set or fight it and then there would be an Inquiry into Bastardy hearing in front of the Poor Law Guardians and that could be appealed to the Quarter Sessions. There were really substantial legal pressures against having an illegitimate child back then, not to mention the financial and social ones as well. A child born to another father was always assumed to be the child of the husband (and still is, even in an age of DNA testing). A child born even a day after the wedding was still legitimate whereas one born a day earlier was not. All very harsh, in my view. Jon -----Original Message----- From: devon-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:devon-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Joy Langdon Sent: 04 December 2013 21:05 To: Blaine Sanders; devon@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [DEV] Baptized as "Base" son/daughter Are you sure that the Ann Saunders who is the mother of Richard Page is the same Ann who is the wife of Philip Saunders? She could be a different single woman, maybe even a relative of Philip and Ann who stayed with them for the confinement. Or, is it certain that Philip was still alive when Ann baptised Richard Page? It is quite usual for widows to continue using their married name after their husband's death. As I said recently, I have two instances in my family tree where the middle name given to a baseborn child is clearly the father's name because the women concerned then married a man with that name as a surname. However, it was also common for the mother's surname or a grandparent's surname to appear as a middle name and I also have an example where a godparent's name was the middle name, although these instances have always appeared with a legitimate birth. There is a marriage of Richard Page Sanders in 1813 to Cecily Parsons. https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KCSD-L93 Joy ________________________________ From: Blaine Sanders <utvairs@yahoo.com> To: "devon@rootsweb.com" <devon@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, 4 December 2013, 16:14 Subject: [DEV] Baptized as "Base" son/daughter A couple of weeks ago, as I was piecing together an ancestral family from the Plymouth area, I came across a son from a marriage that was listed as "Richard Page Base son of Ann Saunders and ?" At first, I couldn't make out the "e" on the end of "Base", and I thought perhaps it was an abbreviation of "Baptized" or "B*stard". But then as I continued going through later entries in the registry, I started seeing a lot more of the same word, more legibly written as "Base". These entries either only listed the mother as the parent, or the mother and a father with a different surname. So at this point I have conclusively decided that Richard Page was indeed an illegitimate child from an extra-marital relationship. The interesting thing is that this son came along after 4 previous siblings, and 3 other siblings proceeded him, all through Ann's husband, Philip Saunders. So he obviously knew of the affair and stayed with her. Kudos to him. Anyway, that's all mostly irrelevant information. What I'm interested in knowing is if "Page" would possibly be Richard's biological father's surname? Would it have been customary to list the illicit father's surname like this, or would it more likely have been a middle name? I found a marriage of a Richard Page in the same parish roughly 20 years later, but no Richard Page Saunders. Opinions? Thank you, Blaine Sanders ------------------------------------------ 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 ------------------------------------------ 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