Genealogy Chat

Hi all, I need a bit of information my grandmother was said to be 16 when she gave birth to a little boy in the workhouse it was said her sister took him out of the workhouse and bought him up as her own and her name is on the certificate as his mother, would this be possible Thank you

what was the babies name

Welcome to the boards, Linda.

Yes, it's possible, if the sister lied to the registrar about being his mother.


Prior to 1926 (in England), 1928 (Ireland) and 1930 (Scotland), adoptions were informal arrangements, so children were often brought up by other relatives as their own, without any legal paperwork being involved.
Perhaps that was the case here, and the sister gave her name because she was his adoptive mother.

Have you checked to see if there are workhouse records ?

Usually too babies born in the workhouse are baptised and registered in the workhouse soon after birth

Seems next weeks Long Lost Family has two Irish men with falsified birth certificates.

We don’t know when this birth was but at times the Workhouse was the only ‘hospital’.

Thank you for your replies, ì will watch the long lost family episode the workhouse
Is now a local hospital and on the certificate it does not say workhouse but the address of the hospital I am a bit sceptical because her sister was only 17 herself at the time I have not checked the records because I am not sure where to look (I don't think her sister was married at the time

I've sent you a PM in reply to yours, in case you don't want to post further details on this public thread.

If it’s only an address then it’s likely the workhouse hospital

They would be used for medical treatment,child birth etc but folks didn’t like the inference of it being workhouse when the patient wasn’t in the workhouse but in the hospital only m so the address was used on birth and death certificates .

It was to take away the stigma of being in the workhouse

Would think it unlikely a baby could be taken from the hospital by a relative and not the mum

Perhaps the sister was actually the mother.

Only workhouse admission/discharge records would clarify that .

Unless she lied about her name on admission!

How soon after the DoB was the birth registered?

Who was the informant? And what was his/her address?

The DOB could,potentially, be as false as the mother is said to be.

Was the older sister already married, otherwise it would be too odd for one unmarried sister to hand over her baby to another unmarried sister.

At one time unmarried mothers were considered to be mentally unstable and put into institutions. So it could be interesting to see how long it was before your grandmother had her next child.

PM from Linda this morning said that the sister was only 17 herself, and that the name of "a boss at the workhouse at Bagthorpe" [Notts.] was on the cert .

I assume he/she was the informant.

Linda didn't say if the sister was married or not.

I replied to Linda's PM, asking for more info. She has opened it, but not replied so far.

Linda said in her post at 10.15 that she didn't think the sister was married...........................

Oh yes, so she did.
The fact that there's no father's name on the cert (from Linda's PM) indicates that the sister was definitely not married.

If she had been married, and "adopting" the child, and naming herself as the mother, I think her husband would have been named as the "father".
(Well, unless he wasn't in favour of the idea.)

Hence, my suspicion that the sister was actually the mother, and had lied about her name in the workhouse.

The story that Linda's grandmother was the mother may have started as part of the sister's cover-up - but then you would think that L's grandmother would have denied it.
This raises more questions - for instance - were the sisters on good terms?
Linda says "it was said" that her grandmother was the mother - said by whom?

There are no online records for Bagthorpe Workhouse/Hospital.
records are held by Nottinghamshire Archives.

Linda sent me the child's name - now deceased, but I won't post his name here unless Linda wants that.
Born 1917.
In 1921 he's with the mother per the birth cert (still unmarried), an illegitimate sister (or half-sister, perhaps), and a couple who are supposedly his grandparents (he's listed as "grandson".)
Different surname, so if they really are his grandparents they must be his father's parents.
In 1911 they have a child aged 11, described as "son", but there's no birth or other record of him.

But in any case, there's nothing online to confirm who the 1917 child's mother was.

Thank you very much to you all for your help the information about the boy came from my aunt the things I know about the event is my grandmother was in the workhouse in 1911 census and her sister Elizabeth was in a different one and was 17 when Thomas was born the address were she lived at the time was Euston square walker street but I have learn from someone on the forum in1921 census she lived at Pembroke place walker street in Nottingham the only marriage for Elizabeth was in 1926 to George Bradbury and a son born 1929 but I know nothing about Thomas or his sister Annie

I've PM'd you Thomas's marriage and death records, and births of possible children.

His sister (or half-sister) died unmarried in 1999 in Nottingham.

If it is all true ( and we’ve all had family stories disproved) I wonder if the older sister was in a position where she could leave her own workhouse and collected the baby so that he didn’t stay in one.

She seems to have kept him, whether or not she was his mother, as they were living in the same household in 1921, along with grandparents.

Unfortunately, if someone told untruths which were recorded by the authorities as fact, there is probably no way of proving/disproving them.