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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2001-07 > 0994053583


From: "Bonner, Gregg" <>
Subject: RE: [DNA] Kincaid Surname DNA Project Plan
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2001 01:59:43 -0400


I think there are a couple of other things.

1) God help you if you are the wife and you have a child who looks like the
court jester, when you are married to the Duke or Earl, etc.

2) For commoners, if the child looks like the blacksmith, it better be a boy
(whipping boys plow better).

3) Back in those days, if the father was identified, he had to cough up the
support money or ELSE, unlike today where it seems like the goal of many men
is to father as many children as possible without sharing any of the burdon.

((parenthetical about another post here - even though poor people have
tended to have more kids, they are less likely to survive to maturity, so I
think it just about balances out.))

4) If the child looks like the blacksmith, then there is a strong
correlation with the likelihood that she will go insane, and have to be
locked in the woodshed - for her own protection.

5) There is that hanging of the albatross letter around the neck thing.

6) There was enormous pressure to have children back then. If the guy was on
his sixth wife with no luck, and they were being dispensed, then I would
imagine, were I in that situation, that I would figure it out, find someone
who looked like Henry, have him do his part, and Bingo, an heir. Then of
course, he would have to be locked in the tower with the daughter acting as
regent, but that's another story.

7) There was this thing called shame back then. I don't think there is much
of that any more.

I think the fooling around quotient is related strongly to women's rights. I
don't imagine there are many non-paternity events in Afghanistan.

I am not familiar with the Wells project, but there is a big difference
between the 7-month pregnancy, and the mother having kids by 4 different
fathers while only married to one. I would like to know how one knows there
is a non-paternity event arising in the 1500s. It seems to me that you would
have to get incredibly lucky to find even one of those with that kind of
precision. You would need to have sample enough to split lines at one
generation, yet be shared in the next generation. And even there, it could
easily be an adoption. From 1550, a woman could get married, have a kid,
have the father die, get remarried and have some more kids, and all the
records indicating same burn 15 times by the time molecular genealogy comes
around.

Cheers,

Gregg





-----Original Message-----
From: Orin Wells [mailto:]
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 1:08 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [DNA] Kincaid Surname DNA Project Plan


At 08:59 PM 7/1/01 -0700, Allan S. Gleason wrote:
>Of course there has always been some "messing around" ... But back in the
days when women were subservient and
vulnerable they were more apt to keep their legs crossed! Don't make the
mistake of assuming that women of yore behaved as do financially
independent women of today where the latest statistic is that 1/3 of all
births are fatherless, ie: virgin?! This did not happen even during the
times of James Stuart's debauchery! That is pure Hollywood!<<

All the show business aside, Alan. I am afraid I have to disagree with you
here. There were more than a few out-of-wedlock births that I have seen
with the Wells studies back into the 1500s even. Maybe it was just
something with the Wells women, but it certainly happened. If you can
remember being a teenager you might be able to see how two young people
together could easily do what they were not supposed to be doing. Shogun
wedding got it's name from something. In many cases the man did make an
"honest woman" of the girl and married her so other than the obviously
short pregnancy evidenced in the births of first children from time to time
you really won't read so much about it. Parish records often reveal the
fatherless births too.

There were also any number of people who ended up in Australia in the late
1700s and early 1800s, when we wouldn't let them keep dumping their
prisoners in the American Colonies anymore, who had mothers but no known
fathers. Given the fact a lot of them were given free trips just to get
the out of England I guess that shouldn't be too surprising. Records show
they didn't always change their ways after getting to Australia either. It
certainly didn't happen to the extent it does today, but happen it did.


Orin R. Wells
Wells Family Research Association
P. O. Box 5427
Kent, Washington 98064-5427
<>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
Subscribe to the "Wells-L" list on RootsWeb


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