illegitamate children

[Pollyvent]

My Great Grandmother Ellen Burton nee Meager was born in St Pancras workhouse in 1871. I have a family bible that tells me her name was Meager. But later during research I found that her mother Catherine didn't marry her husband William till 1878 although on all the following census' Ellen was listed as Meager. Also another clue that Ellen wasn't William's was that their first two children were called William and Catherine so i guess that if Ellen was William's she would probably have been called Catherine. I can't find Ellen on any workhouse records but have her birth cert that confirms this. Also I have Catherine's marriage cert and the odd thing is that she names her brother John as her father when in fact according to my research her father's name was Martin Kelly her mother's name was Mary and they came from Ireland according to people that have contacted me on genes reunited. William also appeared to have named his brother Tom as his father as his father's name was also William. Is there anybody that can come up with a possible explanation for this and also how I can track down Martin and Mary's parents.

Pauline

[janet69]

When people invent a name for their father on their marriage cert. I think it's because they never knew him. Both my grandfather and his brother gave a false name for their father on each of their marriage certs.( I have their birth certificates, so I know the name of their father). Their real father was like the scarlet pimpernel - ie. difficult to trace. We tend to think that info. given on certificates is always true but it isn't. Remember that officials couldn't check computer data bases in those days. I know that this doesn't help you, but it might be a credible explanation.
Janet69

[Neil Wilson]

Have you checked the parish registers for their births, any marriage of the parents? Sometimes the priests wrote more information than they were given, sometimes naming the father if the mother doesn't.