Hey thanks for that Adrian, Nowadays I believe most people have a lot more tolerant attitude to 'single mothers' even to the extent of surrogacy where the child doesn't even know the identity of the father... I suppose it was a lot more serious back in the days when fathers were expected to support their children, and were punished for not doing so. Also I think back then the idea of responsibility and good and acceptable Christian behaviour, coupled with the general harshness of life, public hangings for theft etc, made people far less sympathetic. I believe that there have always been young girls who are pathetically naïve, as well the ones who are 'loose' or 'wanton'... As to the apparently unsympathetic nature of the times, I have seen one example in my tree (census 1851) where a young widow aged 32, with four children, the youngest only a year old, became a 'pauper' on the death of her husband... The four innocent children are also are listed as 'pauper'! So the meaning of the clerk writing [et populi] translates to "you're telling me the father's surname is 'Tender'... yeah, yeah, and the rest!" Another series of thoughts that come to mind in this context is the way that William the Conqueror dealt with people who called him a bastard.. not to mention the antics of say, Henry the VIII, or the behaviour of the Stuart dynasty, for example... On Thu, 2013-11-28 at 19:51 +0000, Adrian Bruce wrote: > <<snipped>> > "et populi" is interesting. Most entries I have seen use "illeg(itimate)" > or even "bastard child". "Et Populi" means "and the people". > <<snipped>> > > The SoG book, "My Ancestor was a Bastard" includes a whole page of synonyms > for illegitimate, including "Filius Populi (child of the people)", "Puer > Populi (child of the people)" and "son of the People" - also "Filius unius > cujusque (child of everyone)", "Filius vulgi (child of the multitude)". > > So it's a consistent theme, albeit slightly differently expressed. Maybe it > was supposed to convey, "child of the mother and the people"? > > Adrian B > > > ------------------------------------------ > 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