NPEs - non-paternity events

[ElizabethHerts]

Originally Posted by Merry

Well, I have copies of three birth certificates where the mother named is 100% not the mother of the child. Two are half-siblings to each other (most likely) and the other one is completely unconnected. In the first two cases the named mother was far to old to be having children and in one of those cases I believe I know who the biological mother is. In the third case the named mother was already dec'd some years before the child was born. As it happens, none of these people are my biological relations. I also have a father on a birth cert who had been dead almost 20 years, but I'm guessing that's more common! Of course we only study these things where it's very obvious that something is amiss!!

I don't have any suspicious circumstances like those in my direct line, although in other branches there are some later children who might not be children of the parents in whose families in which they grew up. Of course, prior to civil registration everything gets a lot murkier!