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I have been searching on and off for a few years for the name of a close relatives father. It has now come to light that in 1946 ( the year of this persons birth) an unsuccessful attempt was made via the local magistrates court, to make him accept responsibility for the child and pay some maintenance. The National Archives do not hold papers relating to civil action, so wondering if anyone had any ideas. Also would this have been in local papers at the time? Thank you in advance. Chris

Christine....From what I recall the Mother /guardian made the application to the Magistrates Court the onus was on the Mother to prove Paternity and this was extremely difficult at the best of time unless the father admitted responsibility...an award for maintenance would then made by the Magistrate if he was satisfied the person named was indeed the father if this was not made then the application record was expunged eg "Case not Proven".

The Application would not be made Public therefore would not be in the Local Paper.

Thank you for your reply, that's really helpful. I am going to contact the local records office, but from what I can find on the web, it seems many of these records are destroyed after thirty years. Chris

We found a record from 1926 when my grandfather left my grandmother and three children. She took him to court for maintenance (which was granted) and we found the record in the Magistrates Court Record Books at the local archives.

We were told that we were allowed to look at the records as long as they were more than 30 years old so you may be lucky. We didn't know exactly when he left but had about a 5 year time span and just had to work our way through the records - which were very interesting.

In the end we found out how much maintenance he had to pay weekly and how much court costs he had to pay - even the name of the police officer who had to serve the notice on him.

Good luck.

Kath. x

Thank you all. Local archives very helpful, hopefully they will find something. Chris