Peter Rollin sought the help of the experts at WDYTYA? Magazine to trace the parentage of his great great grandfather. They sourced a record that would enable him to take his research back to the 1690s. By Gail Dixon
EUREKA MOMENT How a reader broke down a research brick wall
Many fathers of illegitimate children born in past times disappeared from view, both in person and on paper. If you’ve hit such an obstacle, it may be possible to tease out his identity using DNA tests, court records and old wills.
Peter Rollin was perplexed regarding the father of his great great grandfather William. However, with the assistance of WDYTYA? Magazinehe has found an ancestor to be proud of.
My Brick Wall
I got the family history bug in 1998. My wife was adopted, and that year we decided to trace her birth mother. I spent hours in Birmingham Central Library combing through records, and it took around three months to find her. Today, I could probably do it online in an afternoon.
By 2003, I had taken my paternal line back to William and Susannah Rollin, my great great grandparents who lived in rural Nottinghamshire. William was born in 1811 in Gamston, near Retford, and was a bailiff before becoming a farmer of 40 acres.
Researching their ancestry presented me with a conundrum. Both the 1851 and 1861 censuses stated that a man called William Farrand(s) was my 3x great grandfather, but they didn’t make clear whose father he was. In 1851, it was implied that he was the father of Susannah Rollin. However, in 1861 he was listed as the parent of William Rollin.
Family trees online widely assumed that William Farrand was Susannah’s father. But when I searched for confirmation, all I found was evidence that proved the trees were wrong.
I purchased birth certificates for William and Susannah’s twin daughters Maria and Martha from the website of the General Register Office (www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content). These 1844 listings gave their mother’s name as “Susannah Rollin, formerly Whitaker”.
This led to another clue: Susannah’s baptism record in Littleborough, Nottinghamshire.
Tracing The Father Of An Illegitimate Child These websites may help you track down a parent who is missing from the records
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