Genealogy Chat

Well, in that case OC, I have just eaten a B*****d sausage roll and now have stomach ache! I think it sometimes appears on a marriage cert in the column where the father's name would normally go (though, of course, I don't actually HAVE any like this!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL) Merry (41¼)

I have never seen a cert with the word Bastard on it - which column would this word go in!!!??? You must mean Parish Records and I have certainly seen Bastard written there, along with base born, love child, natural child. In fact I was trawling a PR and was very puzzled to see that most of the children baptised were also ill. I wondered for ages what could possibly be wrong with them - the penny took a while to drop! But you have to remember two things here: The Parish Register was never intended to be seen by all and sundry,it was a Church Record and probably only ever seen by Church officials. Secondly, Bastardy was for many centuries, a crime punishable by imprisonment for the mother AND the father. The word bastard had a legal implication (and also a moral one, of course) Merry - bastard sugar etc. means 'a substance adulterated with components of unknown origin' LOL! Olde Crone

Yes, base born or natural born

I put the B word into The Times archive search engine. The word doesn't appear in reference to illegitimate children for years and years (archive starts in 1785) Most early refs are either peoples names or goods....''b*****d sugar'' being a favourite.....not sure what context that would be?? Unrefined???? LOL (''and how many lumps of B*****d do you take in your tea??'' LOL) Merry

I don't think bastard was a term of abuse until relatively recently. After all William the Conqueror was known as William the Bastard and there are several bastards and references to bastards in Shakespeare's plays. It's only the uptight Victorians who got all prissy about being respectable. nell

Well, as I said, I understood that to have that name indicated you were the illegitimate child of nobility - so I guess at that time it was a status symbol.

I actually have the surname Barstard in my tree that eventually droped the first r. You have to wonder how these people coped in rural Norfolk with that name and why didn't they change it.

I also have a child named on the census in relationship column as 'love-child'. Aaahhhh!

There are 788 on this site. Don't know how many are official!

I remember reading in one of my history books about this. It said something along the lines that it was often written down that way by the registrar as a way of shaming the girl so she didn't do it again out of wedlock. I suppose some were more cruel than others. Yes, and the surname of B*****d being given to a child - again the further back you go the more often you'll see this (have found a few on the Bristol & Avon baptisms) - another type of deterrent to young girls getting pregnant out of marriage (although I doubt it worked too well). Some of them would have changed their name as they grew up, anyway.

When I was a personnel assistant at a very large engineering factory, (over 1000 employees)we started running a pension scheme. To join it you had to have a medical and bring in your birth cert. I remember this chap coming into my office one day when we had this campaign running. His names was something very ordinary (for the sake of anyone who may be related on here, lets call him Johnson). So I said Hello Mr Johnson, have you brought your birth cert for me. He sidled up to my desk and handed it to me. I didnt even glance at it because I had a pile of them in front of me. I said, leave it here, Ill photocopy it and send it down in the internal post to you. So off he goes, I pick up the birth cert and there it was - Alfie Johnson was born Alfie Bastard. Now, I know it must be a bit embarrassing, but when you think that to have that name officially meant you were probably the illegitimate child of a nobleman, I dont know if I would have changed it if it were me.

That's true Carol.....we wouldn't have a Government thingy with the word B*****d in it today!! Though there are a few of them in the House of Commons!!! Merry

Ive only seen 'base born' or 'natural child' on parish registers. I guess it depends on the officiating vicar or the clerk who wrote them up - if they were real B********** themselves they probably added it in disgust.

But do we know what level of ''crudeness'' was placed on each of these words in the past??? Today we see the word B*****d as needing those ****'s But all these other words.....illegitimate, base born, natural child of, etc etc.......We don't know whether to write those alternatives was ''softer'' than B*****d or not, in the eyes of the person writing it???? In my old dictionary it has the second definition of B*****d as ''a sweet wine (muscadel)''. Merry

The term barstard was in common use at the time. Which is probably why the CSA of the day issued barstardy bonds to get fathers to pay for their offspring. Not sure when things changed, probably around the mid 1800s

I've never seen it on a birth certifcate, just a blank line where father's name should be, and usually an occupation for mother on more recent ones. Even in the parish registers, I've not seen it spelt out - usually says base-born if anything. The majority just give the mothers name. Perhaps my vicars were a little more human than some I've heard of.

I have never seen this word. I have a couple of certs for illegitimate people. One just has a line through the father's column, and the other one says 'illegitimate daughter of Susanna Barnes' on both her birth and marriage certs. nell

I have noticed a few people commenting lately on the wording B*****d (i'm sure you get my drift) on a birth cert, this is awful, my mothers own birth cert just has a dash where the father would have been. My mother never found out who her father was even when her mother was on her death bed she still wouldn't tell her. She definately knew, we think it was the result of an affair with her sisters husband.My mum was born in 1929.We think all the family knew. catherine