Genealogy Chat

I wanted to share my great success today as it may help others searching for missing fathers of illegitimate children.

My local library suggested I search the bastardy orders and there he was!

It seems that they had a version of the CSA in the 1800's!!!

Its not easy to search and the records are grouped into blocks of about 10 years. I have to wait until next week now to get more info as they need to get the actual record out of the vault for me. When I get it it should give me more details about him and his family as well as further details of her.

If you're at a dead-end its definitely worth a try.
Thanks to Terry at Bolton library

Nicola,
I have a John Henry Speakman born 1881 in Farnworth Bolton to Ann Speakman no father listed.
Are these records at all libraries covering all areas or just local.
Gail

Thanks for that nicola ill give my local library a go then, just a question would all illegitamate births have a bastardy order?

I don't think so - I think the mother of the child has to claim against the father of the card for some finicial support and that is why an order is made. Irene

Alas, they are not all available. The church where my illegit gt grandfather was bapt has a parish chest in which such things would have been held. It had 3 padlocks and 3 different people had the different keys needed to open it. One key was lost. When they eventually forced the chest open all the papers in it had turned to dust. Sob sob.
However I suspect that family supported my gt gt grandmother and her son, so I will never know who the illegit father was. Of course the middle name of Crompton is possibly a clue, but there were quite a few of them in the area at the time, I believe, so which one? And how do you prove it?

Id just mention here that Settlement Certificates are also very useful and can sometimes be found in local records offices.

People who moved to a different parish had to have a certificate from their home parish saying if they fell ill or unemployed they would be accepted back rather than cost the new parish payments of relief.

You can also find Examinations of Settlements - when decisions were made whether to remove a family from a parish.

Interesting stuff.

I dont know if all libraries keep them but you are in luck as the library where happens to also be your local one (to farnworth that is). If you are local Speak to Terry at the library on Le Mans Cescent and she'll show you the book. If you are not local then if you pm me the details I will try to look it up for for when I go back

The actual orders are kept in the vaults of the museum and to get all the details they need to get the actual documents out for me which they have promised to do next week. I cant wait!
I had always assumed that I would never find out who he was.

Do the records go back to 1831 for Bolton? x

This is an old post Barbara, so probably not being checked any longer. You could try searching the Lancs archive catalogue:

http://archivecat.lancashire.gov.uk/calmview/Overview.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog