Hi folks, Just re-subscribed after a number of months away...with some help from Outriggger, I broke through my brick wall! (Outriggger, if you're out there...THANKS!!) Now I am inundated with information that will take me a while to wade through (rather happily, too!) At any rate, I've been finding a regular rogues' gallery...here's the story, convolutions and all. The ancestor who emigrated to the US left behind a wife and 4 children. He was faithfully sending back money for the family for a time. In the meantime, he met and supposedly married the woman we've all believed to be great-great grandma and proceeded to have children with her. Two years after his first American child was born, his Swiss wife gives birth to another child. Now this is where it gets interesting...the person who's the unofficial genealogist for the village they lived in says that according to the christening record, the priest listed the ancestor's *father* as the father of this baby. My question is this: is it possible that ancestor's father was named as the FOB because ancestor had deserted the family? I am not going to be judgmental, I just would like to know if this was a practice to legitimize children. Any thoughts? Elisabeth ö¿ö