My experience with this situation is that there is no set way to handle it and it depends on who in the family is willing and able to care for the children and sometimes the age of the children. I have one family in my tree where there were 2 children by a previous marriage, both under 4 years of age, and when the mother remarried, they took the stepfathers name and appear to have been raised as if they were his own. In two other families, the children lived with the mother's parents for several years until the new couple got settled. Then they moved back in with their mother and stepfather and kept their father's last name. Of course, in one of these cases, that was no problem because the mother had divorced one brother and married another so all the kids had the same last name and were raised as siblings and didn't even know they had a half-brother until they were in their twenties. :-) I don't know if the era would have any relevance on the handling of the situation, but just for the record, the 3 instances above were, in order, in the 1860's, 1900's and 1920's. If you are determined to find out what happened to Margaret's children, there is probably no sure way to do it other than to track all family members who were in a position to take them and see if the children were there during the applicable years. I don't mean to be morbid, but I just recalled what a cousin had told me about a branch of her family (a distant branch only related by marriage to my family). She had a death certificate on a spouse and a re-marriage and couldn't find the children of the first marriage. After several years, she was finally able to find the deaths of all 3 children. Apparently there was some sort of plague that went through the community and she lost everybody in the space of several months. So, I guess I'm saying keep an open mind and check out all the possibilities if you want to find the children. Perhaps someone here will have some advice that is more specific and helpful for you. --Tara "Pat. Wary" <amusic@epix.net> wrote in message news:3CADB673.BF141AEB@epix.net... > My gg grandfather John Connolly married my gg grandmother Margaret > Brennan Kiernan. Both were Irish immigrants to America around 1850, the > approximate date of their marriage. Both had been married before, in > America, and I believe both had children from their first marriages. It > suddenly occurred to me that I don't know what happened to the children > of Margaret's first marriage (if there were any)! > So the question is this: does anyone know what happens to the mother's > children in a case like this? Are they taken on by the family of their > deceased father(I'm sure that happens in some societies, and I think I > remember reading somewhere that in the case of divorce, the husband got > the kids in the 1800's)? Are they raised by the mother and stepfather, > and keep their original last names? Or do they automatically change > their last names to that of the second husband? And is this done > officially, or just as a matter of course? > I just hope I don't have to reexamine and possibly rearrange my family > groupings, an annoying prospect. > Thanks in advance, > -Pat.