If Grandma had an “oops” baby, try and determine if it was really her “oops” baby or whether it was the baby of one of her older daughters. Sometimes the “oops” wasn’t Grandma and Grandpa’s fault. While it’s possible your great-grandma had her tenth child when she was in her very late forties, it’s also possible that it was actually her grandchild.
But don’t conclude it was actually one of her daughter’s babies until you have some evidence. A suspicion alone does not count.
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Potential “oops” babies are everywhere! Census records are notorious for listing grandchildren as children. I have three in one family … one child’s parents both died in the same year, one whose parents were never married (shown as illegitimate in baptismal records), and one where the child’s father died and mother remarried. All three of these children were apparently raised by their grandparents. In a different line, I found a baptismal record for a great-grandfather where the parents are really the grandparents. The very next line in the baptismal records shows their youngest child being baptized on the same day. My great-grandfather used his father’s surname (even though his mother and father were never married), however, the index to these baptism appears shows his surname as his mother’s maiden name. Leave no stone unturned … and document how you arrive at your conclusions.
thank you for this advice, as I am trying to trace my maternal grandfather’s line, but this is something my Grandmother had no luck with after he died. She had wanted to find his siblings to let them know he had died, despite him not wanting any contact when he was alive.
So true. Census records showed a 6 year old son living with my great grandparents several years after they appeared to be ‘done’. As my grandfather never mentioned a much younger brother I started looking at his sisters. Sure enough, one of them, unmarried, died of a complication shortly after giving birth.
It’s not a nice thought to have, but I have considered this with one of my great grandmothers. She had seven healthy children between 1908 (when she was 26) and 1919 (when she was 37). They went on to live long, fruitful lives. Then another son was born in 1921 (when she was 39, which really isn’t THAT old) who only lived for 8 months and another daughter was born in 1928 (when she was 46.5) who only lived 4 months. One thing that always made me wonder about whose children they really were is that they are buried with one of my great aunts, and their names appear on the back of her gravestone. Aside from ordering their birth certificates, I’m not sure what other evidence might surface that speaks to it one way or another. Not that it really matters at the end of the day, given that they died so young. Just a curiosity.
Evidence is very hard to find in 1906 in Texas. Any hints how to find any?