Thread: 3 generations of missing fathers...?

I've been tracing my father's ancestry for some time now, but I've hit some roadblocks with regards to fathers of two women in the family. His paternal grandmother, Ann Jane Jones (b. 1886 in Bala, Merionethshire), apparently gave birth to a daughter, Lily May Jones (~1906, in Bettws Gwerfil Goch, Merionethshire) before she met my dad's paternal grandfather, and the baptismal record for Lily May shows no father. I later obtained a birth certificate for Ann Jane, which shows she was born to Ann Jones (b. 1846, Trawsfynydd, Merionethshire), but there is no father listed for Ann Jane either. There's also no father listed for Ann Jones.



I'm not sure if I'm interpreting this correctly, but I'm wondering if all three women are illegitimate children. Is there any way I can discover who any of the fathers are?



Any help would be greatly appreciated!

If no father is listed its almost certainly because the children were illegitimate. If there's no father named on the baptisms either, then its going to be tough to impossible to find a father.



Sometimes a person will name a father on their marriage cert, though its also true these are often made up for respectability!



If the mothers took the fathers to court for maintenance this should appear in the relevant quarter sessions papers at the county archives.