Genealogy Chat

I have someone in my tree who was born to an unwed mother in about 1855 at Cambridgeshire. No bapt or birth reg can be found for him. When he married in the 1880s the name of his maternal uncle appears in the space where his father's name should be. How likely is this to be a deliberate lie put to the vicar, or could his father really have had the same name as his uncle?

Was he brought up by the maternal uncle perhaps? As to whether his real dad had the same name, it rather depends on the rarity of the name. Lets hope he wasn't the product of incest!! I bet he just treated his uncle as a father figure and wanted to put a name for a dad on the marriage cert to avoid the embarrassment of saying he was illegitimate... Sarah

that was a quick reply Sarah! The surname was Deer so fairly common but all Deer's in that part of the world seem to be closely related. He was was raised by his mother in Essex and I don't know if he ever had contact with his uncle who lived in London. Incest? Oh I hope not, that's too nasty to even think about lol. My family is crazy enough without throwing that into the mix as well.

If he didn't live close to his uncle and therefore was not brought up by him, I expect it was just the first name he thought of with the right surname when he was asked for his dad's details!! Does the occupation of the ''father'' match with the uncle's occupation? I'm sure there was no incest in this case!! If someone knew they were the product of an incestuous relationship they would be BOUND to lie when they married and make up a completely different father, as far removed from the real one as possible!! Sarah

The father's occupations were different - the uncle was a bootmaker and the 'father' was a horse trainer or similar. It's just weird because I haven't been able to find 2 men in that area 1854ish with the same name. I think they must have put the uncle's name on the cert to cover up the groom's illegitimacy thinking nobody would ever find out...

could be that the uncle's got nothing to do with it, the details are correct for the real father except that he's changed the surname to match his own, to avoid explanations. Just coincidence that his father's Christian name was the same as his mother's brother's

A coincidence, Lynda, I have the same thing in my family tree. In my case, it's my gt. grandmother, an illegitimate child, born 1858. She gave the name of her maternal uncle as her father on her marriage. In this case, the uncle had brought her up when her mother died when she was only 5. I have never been able to determine who her father was, which leaves quite a hole in the family tree. I did consider incest but thought 'surely not!' Margaret in Canada