Hello. I am wondering how unusual it was to have step-daughters bearing their father's children. I'm afraid that my family tree is a bit twisted! I never imagined that this would happen in Victorian England but my ggggrandmother (Jane Wildman b.1840) was once listed as a step-daughter to William Goodman. Then she was his "servant" and then she was listed as his wife. Many children came as a result of this union, my gggrandfather among them. Just curious how common this was.:confused
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Thread: Incest in Victorian England
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11-11-2008, 8:01 PM #1wilddougGuest
Incest in Victorian England
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11-11-2008, 8:09 PM #2
When she was listed as his step-daughter, was he married to someone else? Her mother, for example? Was there a large age gap between them?
I think you need to find the marriage certificate and Jane's birth certificate, and see who her parents were, especially in view of her changing status. I've seen the term "step daughter" used as a sort of honourary title for what looked like a foster child. The children of a spouse were often called son or daughter in law.
Check the families before you panic!
Lesley
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11-11-2008, 10:01 PM #3
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It would not be incest. A step daughter would be the daughter of one's spouse, from a previous marriage of that spouse, therefore no blood relation.
Tacky, but not incest! Look at Woody Allen
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11-11-2008, 10:43 PM #4JenniLlGuest
Mona is right about the step daughter relationship.
However incest was common (and still is). It is one of those subjects that no one wants to talk about because "it never happened in our family". It would I imagine be a very difficult subject to research in historical terms. There are villages where it is well known in medical circles that there has been a lot of "in breeding".
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11-11-2008, 10:56 PM #5wilddougGuest
Yes... but
Yes, I agree that it is not a blood relative, but was this not unusual? Maybe my preconcieved idea of Victorian times is that it was very conservative about things like this. If it makes us uncomfortable, imagine a person from the Victorian Era. Then again, perhaps it was just not out in the open. It was interesting to see that Jane's children seem to retain her last name, even AFTER she married her step-father. Gross.
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11-11-2008, 11:46 PM #6jeebGuest
Victorians
Hi Doug,
The first thing to remember is that Victorians were Human Beings committing the same crimes as those who came before and after. The Victorians are perceived to be modest law abiding citizens as indeed many were. However incest, rape, illegitamate births and the like were just as common as any other time. Many of those Victorian marriages we spend hours searching for just never happened, a lot of people just lived in 'sin' and called themselves 'married' and bigamy was common place. Often too, when a child appears on a census many years younger than its siblings an 'older sister' will be the real mother.
Jeremy
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12-11-2008, 7:56 AM #7Guy EtchellsGuest
No there was a lot of hypocrisy in Victorian times.
They were like ducks smooth on the top and paddling like mad underneath.
I.E. The public face of society was prime and proper with the private lives, in many cases, quite sordid.
Cheers
Guy
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