The widow of a deceased man might not be the mother of his children. She could be the mother of all of them, some of them, or none of them. Use other records to see if you can draw conclusions. Use the information as clues, but don’t assume that the widow was the mother of all the children just based upon that one document if the relationship is not clearly stated.

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  1. My great grandfather John Aitken and his wife Jane Gealy had 6 children (one stillborn). Jane died shortly after the youngest was born. John hired a distant relative Jane Pennicook to care for the children, and eventually married her. When he died less than a year later she went on to raise the children. If you weren’t aware of the first death and the remarriage, it would be easy to conclude that the 2 Jane’s were the same person. Check everything!

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