[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Children Without Fathers

[Sigrid Pohl Perry]

I am one of the indexers for the Lublin Project, so I have seen many 
marriage records. The long Napoleonic records, and even the compilation 
tables, will indicate if the mother is unmarried and the father 
"unknown." If the father died before the child was born, or if he was 
absent due to work far from home or for military service, that is stated 
in the record, and witnesses testify that he was the father of the 
child. However, witnesses will also testify that the husband could not 
be the father because the absence or death was too long for gestation. 
Some of these young mothers marry, perhaps with the child's father, 
though of course we can't know that for certain. I noticed banns for one 
young woman published almost simultaneously in the Lublin church and the 
Chelm church (the parents were the same, so it was not just a case of 
the same name); a few weeks later a child was born and baptized--so we 
knew which marriage ceremony had been performed! The parents must have 
been trying desperately to negotiate a marriage before the birth.

Some of us volunteers on the Lublin Team have consulted on records that 
puzzle us, precisely because a woman gives birth to several children 
over the years without benefit of marriage. Another explanation besides 
prostitution could be that she was a common law wife to someone not 
Evangelical Lutheran. I've seen several birth/baptism records for a 
mother who was married; in some records her husband is named as the 
father, in others the child is given her surname; the husband lives in 
another village. But when these children grow up and marry, he is listed 
on their marriage record as the father. Only a dna paternity test would 
know for sure!

Sigrid Pohl Perry

On 5/15/2013 7:28 PM, Jerry Frank wrote:
> The way an illegitimate child is recorded is often dependent on the pastor who enters the record.  I have seen records where the father is recorded as "that rascal Gustav X" with the actual name shown in place of X.  In another instance, the father's name was entered upside down.  Most are simply not recorded.
>
> We do have to be careful about assumptions regarding the reason.  In my ancestry I found a distant cousin in the 18th century who had 3 children within a few years.  All died within months of each other.  She died a few years later in a poor house.  I suspect she may have been a prostitute but there is of course no proof.
>
> Usually a legitimate father who dies before the birth would be listed as the father and noted as deceased.
>
> Rape is a possibility but some women willingly entered out-of-wedlock relationships and suffered the consequences.
>
> Jerry
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "B Hirsekorn"<tggrtime at yahoo.ca>
> To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
> Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 11:27:21 AM
> Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Children Without Fathers
>
> In looking at church records from the Lodz area (1860-1865),
> I noticed a number of births with no mention of a father only the mother was listed.
> In checking the history of Poland, found that 1863 was the year of the January
> Uprising and in 1864 the country was under Russian rule.
>
>
> If a married couple has a child and the father dies before
> the child is born is the father not listed in the church record? (Note: I cannot
> read Polish.)
>
>
> If the fathers were Polish men (unmarried) who fought and
> died fighting the Russians would they not be listed?
>
>
> Or, were the children the result of rape by Russian soldiers
> and, therefore, no father listed?
>   
> Betty Hirsekorn
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