Christine, Who do you reckon is the George Flower who is with Selina and her son and family in 1881? Name Relation Marital Status Gender Age Birthplace Occupation Disability Selina FLOWER Head U Female 34 Bristol, Gloucester, England File Cutter George A. FLOWER Son Male 14 Ecclesfield, York, England Moulders Labourer (Iron) Mary A. FLOWER Daur Female 9 Ecclesfield, York, England Scholar Sarah E. FLOWER Daur Female 4 Ecclesfield, York, England George FLOWER Lodger U Male 25 Ecclesfield, York, England File Cutter Source Information: Dwelling Norfolk Lane Census Place Ecclesfield, York, England Family History Library Film 1342114 Public Records Office Reference RG11 Piece / Folio 4616 / 131 I notice that Mary A Flower, daughter of Selina, is surely so named after her mother, who was a Mary Ann? Is that her brother? I notice her father is called George, and in 1861, the lodger is not with the family in Nether Hallam. Do you conclude she named her son George A Flower after her father or the child's father? I have followed a couple of families where there is illegitimacy, and the family have two ways of dealing with it. One is to make sure all public documents, census, birth, marriage and baptismal certificates have no record of the father of the child. Baptism could have been a private affair I suppose. In the above case, we have never have found out the name of the father, even though he did receive a lot of money by way of a will so that he was able to buy a farm, but we are stioll none the wiser if that was the father! The other case involved a fish merchant who had an illegitimate daughter, which only comes out on the marriage certificate, on the father's name! Up to then nothing is mentioned, no bastardy case etc, but then we suppose the mother was able to care of the child without resource to the parish for support. You often see in the newspapers of the day bastardy cases, where the parish is going to great lengths to either make sure the woman has no more illegitimates, and so would cause the parish to have to support them. I did look in the Sheffield & Rotherham Independent for anything to do with Selina Flower/s and couldn't find any record of a Bastardy orders etc. They were certainly plenty of bastardy orders being made at Rotherham Town hall, but none for the Flower/Flowers family so it's likely then that Selina knew the name of the father of her child, and so did her family as well; maybe her father knew it as well, but there was no need to tell the rest of the community, and certainly not officialdom. As long as the child could be brought up by Selina is such circumstances so that the parish would not have to pay for it. John