Genealogy Chat

My great grandmother had two children before she married. They both had different fathers, then she married someone else! How do I put the younger one , who was my grandfathers half sister, onto my tree please.

Gillian you need to "view details" for your grandmother by clicking on her name in your tree. Then you have to "add another partner" (if you don't know his name put unknown). Once you have done this you can "add another child" to your gt grandmother and the page should give you the option to select the right partner. Hope that all makes sense Zoe

Gillian, I had the exact same issue with my Gr grandmother. She had my Grandmother out of wedlock, father unknown, and then she married and had 3 more children, divorced and remarried again......Devils weren't they!!!!!!!!!! Welcome to the Naughty Nana's club!!!!!!!! As Zoe suggested you can add another partner to your Gt Grandmother and put him as unknown, and then give her another partner. If your programme allows you can then put the marriage down as "divorced" "married" or "not married" as my programme allows. Jenny

How many of us have heard from grandmothers etc, when talking about unmarried mothers. "We didn`t do things like that in my day" My grandmother told me this many years ago. I have since discovered that both she and her parents married 3 months before the first child was born.

My programme allows multile marriages, with optional events such as lived with, lived together and not married. My husband`s paternal grandmother wasn`t married, so I have to go back on grandmothers side.

many thanks for your help ladies, I eventually sorted it, but not before I had given the poor soul THREE unknown partners! Yes, this one went on to marry and have five children. The first two appeared to be brought up by their grandmother, which, I believe was the done thing then. I wonder if their mother kept in touch with them? You hear about how these girls supposedly "shamed" their families and were cast out, but so many of them appear to go on to marry and have further families, with no worries attached. Thanks again Gill.

A lot of my female ancestors seem to have jumped the gun before marriage. I always wonder if they were condemned by their small communities, the old "no better than she should be"... I think illegitimate children were mostly left with grandparents because whoever was willing to marry the girl was not prepared to take on another man's children. My g/grandmother had three children before marrying my g/grandfatherin the 1850s, and appears on the 1901 census living with two grandchildren, one her daughter's illegitimate child and the other her illegitimate son's son. They stuck together in those days. If the alternative was the workhouse or the asylum you can understand why. But I wish I could have been a fly on the wall! My 20th century relations were so pious on the subject!