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Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 2007-05 > 1178546988


From: "C P Biggam" <>
Subject: Re: [Ess] Christenings
Date: Mon, 7 May 2007 15:09:48 +0100
References: <001401c78f4e$2a202800$0300a8c0@MumsComputer><011501c78fb0$c1167900$0201010a@pamzmocwe33zpr><001a01c78fc0$47330fd0$4001a8c0@Gwenda><012701c790a0$fdb4a530$0301a8c0@portable>


>I have noticed that when the term "Spurious child of" is used this usually
>refers to the father named by the mother of an illegitimate child. You
>might read something like "John son of Jane Smith spurious child of James
>Brown"
etc., etc.,

***Jenny,

Not always the case in the the records I've been reading, i.e. Harwich
parish registers. One example (and there are others) reads "James spurious
son of Elizabeth Clark".

> A child can't be the spurious child of the mother as she would have borne
> him but he could be the spurious, or supposed, child of the father named
> by the mother,

***I imagine you're thinking of the definition of 'spurious' that is listed
under sense 3 in the 'Oxford English Dictionary' (I mean, the full version).
It reads: 'Superficially resembling or simulating, but lacking the genuine
character or qualities of something; not true or genuine; false, sham,
counterfeit'. However, sense 1 reads as follows: 'Of persons: Begot or born
out of wedlock; illegitimate, bastard, adulterous'. The earliest recorded
example of this usage is 1598, and it extends to the end of the nineteenth
century (perhaps later, when this part of the dictionary has been revised).

I agree about some of the awful comments which creep into these records -
quite shocking by modern standards.

All the best,

Carole Biggam


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