How Unusual Would It Be To Be A Single Mothers To Three Children In The 1920/30's In Britain

[dinki]

Tracing one line back the mother is on the birth certficate the father is either blank of not known. She brought three of them up without a partner as far as we are aware and seems to have continued to work. I thought it would be very unusual. The children had her surname

Perhaps someone with alot of genealogy experience could help, I have traced several lines and its the only one like this.

[sandyRoe]

A great many women must have lost their partners in the war and had little chance or finding another. So maybe then it wasn't that unusual.

[craft1948]

One 'lady' in my tree never married and was on the 1911 census with her 3 children............

[Octavius]

Have you tried looking for court church records, it may be that the chidsren were illegitimate and she merely refused to name the father, suchj as this record..

"This Child at the time of its Baptism could not find a Father. Her Mother gave it to a Packman which she said came up to her on the road from Edinr. Though the Father was suspected to be nearer the doors. But a confession from the time it was born to this day Could not be extorted from the Mother"

[grasscarp]

My husbands Italian mother had 4 children by different fathers back in the 1940s. I dont think she actually married any of them.

[dinki]

Just to clarify she was never married as far as I can see, kept her original christian name.

[Octavius]

Maybe he was someone of prominence!

[pixie373]

My gran's mum died early 1930s, when she was 8, so her father was a single dad bringing up 11 children.

[DJHawkes]

You only have to look through any page of the GRO index for the 1920s and see how many children have been registered in a surname with the exact same surname showing for the mother's maiden name. It was a time when women were able to work at more skilled trades due to the lack of man power post war and they had a new type of independence. I find it quite often and of course it is disapointing that it means the loss of a line to persue. Sometimes there would be an entry in a baptism register naming a father, but not very often and not as late as the 1920s probably. It is possible that at their marriage, a child without a named father on their birth certificate may name a father on their marriage certificate, as to marry as illegitimate even into the 1950s and 60s was scandalous and of course more public than a private birth registration.