Postumous children

[Phoenix]

What about the postumous children in your tree?

I have plenty, but my favourite is Susannah Hibbert, daughter of Ann:

"THIS CHILD WAS BORN DURING HER HUSBAND'S ABSENCE & AFTER HE HAD BEEN ABSENT & NOT HEARD OF FOR SIX YEARS & 3 QUARTERS."


Go on, folks, beat that

[Pinefamily]

Six years? That even beats an elephant
Off the top of my head I think 3 years is the longest in my tree.

[Mary from Italy]

My great-grandfather William was born two years after his mother's 1st husband died, and 4 years before she married her 2nd one.

His birth was registered under the surname of the 1st husband, but in the censuses and thereafter he took the surname of the 2nd husband, who described him in his will as "my natural son", but I'm a bit dubious about that, as he and William's mother would both have been free to marry at the time of his birth. They came from a very small village, both from Baptist families, so you'd think they would have got married before William's birth to avoid a scandal if they'd been together at the time. As it was, they went off to a big city to get married.

[Olde Crone]

My forebears were all pillars of rectitude. *Feels nose anxiously*

I have a charming note in a marriage register for one Alice Holden, who has the express permission of the archbishop to remarry because her first husband was "sent beyond the seas for life more than seven years ago" The charm.dimmed slightly when I discovered mass baptism of five children born to this "now married" couple on the same day as the wedding!

OC

[Merry]

I don't remember who this person is - could be from my tree or perhaps a relative of someone I've helped, but I do remember a child was born around 1920 and the mother's husband was named as the father, but he had died just after the 1901 census. I think it was actually 18 years and a few months after his death that, apparently, his child was born!!

I think the father was called Samuel.... possibly.....

[crawfie]

I just recently came across one whose husband died in Mar Q 1886, yet the child born in Dec Q 1897 was still registered as his.

I also have one incident in my tree where a child was born after the mother's death. Mother died in childbirth before midnight, child was stillborn after midnight, but still registered as a birth.

[Nell]

Crawfie

How do you know the baby was stillborn?