You were fined if you did not register the birth of a child. So you got it registered. If you wanted to appear respectable, you said you were married.
When Best Mate's great aunt was faced with this situation, she lost her head completely. She had already said her surname was her maiden name. The only man's name she could think of off the top of her head was her brother's. Do we think this was incest? Of course not.
What you then did was get what is now called the short certificate. This simply had name and date of birth, no parents' names. Whoever got the children baptised either did not know or remember what was on the certificate.
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The chestnuts cast their flambeaux
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