Forum | PolishOrigins :: View topic - A question on documents

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EANWhitson
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Joined: 18 Apr 2012
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Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2013 7:48 pm Post subject:

I have a question on documents. A birth record shows the mother as unmarried. No father is listed. Going through records of the town, I see the mother married seven years later. The couple had a couple of children that died as infants. When the oldest child, the child that had no father listed, got married, his mother is listed with her maiden name and after her name is the word unmarried.

I find no record of her husband dieing (I have not gone past the year of this marriage yet, but will to see if they stayed in this area).

Did I just miss a death record somewhere? Or could they have gotten divorced? (The years would have been between 1840-1848.) Or would the marriage record of the oldest son just used the name of his mother and listed her as unmarried as the birth record of the son did?

Thank you.

sirdan
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 2:57 am Post subject:

Hello, i also came across such record in my research. I think we should not assumpt that the oldest son is the one of the man that married a unmarried woman seven years later. It's possible woman didt'n want to say who was the father or father was already married with someone else, thus no new marriage record nor divorce. As a side note, you would never find divorce act in parish records, aditionally in the middle of XIX c. no one could think of divorce anyway i suppose.

Before the oldest son married, a priest for sure had checked his birth record. Groom's mother on the marriage record is listed with her maiden surname as she had no husband at giving birth, so it suits Your last question perfectly. Why to note"unmarried" at all on son's marriage record? Maybe it was a custom in a parish, maybe the priest was pedantic, also maybe general rule at that time.

Elzbieta Porteneuve
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:09 am Post subject:

EANWhitson,

Fascinating question, because to formulate it permits to see how much the marriage rules evolved since XIX.

Among many other things, marriage is about filiation, property, inheritance.

You wrote than Katarzyna, unmarried mother, was very much loved and protected by her brother. It's factual, her son's birth record is extraordinary, you perceive that solidarity. But what was the context, how difficult was her situation and how hostile the rules or law?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code.
"With regard to family, the Code established the supremacy of the man over the wife and children, which was the general legal situation in Europe at the time. A woman was given fewer rights than a minor. Divorce by mutual consent was actually abolished for women in 1804, a backward step."

I would also ask other questions:

What was mandatory to be written in a marriage record of a natural child: the mother name at his birth, or the mother's marriage name (which could occur later).

What was a rule in XIX century, if any, for a natural child of a mother, after she married? Was a natural child adopted by a husband? How it would be recorded in vital records?

What was better for the natural child in term of inheritance?
Napoleonic Code gave half-part of legitimate inheritance to the natural child (as compared to the legitimate one).

I passed your question to French collegues, I will share answer, if any.

Best,
Elzbieta

NB. Please note that the real freedom of married women in France is a very recent matter. When I married here, I knew, and I was revolted, that my rights as a woman, given by Communist Poland, were strongly reduced in France (as outcome of Napoleonic Code).

EANWhitson
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 8:48 am Post subject:

Sirdan and Elzbieta - thank you so much for your insight into this matter. I appreciate it very much. I knew to understand the records, I had to understand the history/culture of the area and I have absolutely no knowledge of this.

It sounds silly, but I am relieved that divorce was probably not what happened here. (Although that is with the assumption the man she, Katarzyna, eventually married was a good man.) But her life seemed to be very hard and so I know I am putting my thoughts and not the facts here.

Elzbieta, I will be very interested in any answer you receive. Thank you for asking your colleagues!

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