Mary Harvey Wright (mary.harveywright @t  eurotunnel.com) of Folkestone writes: I have been trying to find out the parentage of my ancestor Catherine HORN of Little Gaddesden born around 1790. Catherine had 7 children out of wedlock, whose baptisms are recorded in the Little Gaddesden register:

Anne         9 April 1809
Hannah     28 April 1811
Maria         17 October 1813   (mine)
Eliza         5 January 1817
William Henry     16 June 1820
Caroline Elizabeth     29 June 1823
George Thomas     10 June 1827

The father's name is not recorded on the baptism registers or on the two marriage certificates I have.

Family lore has it that she had a long and loving relationship with someone above her social status.  HALS could find no bastardy records relating to this family so there was clearly no financial drain to the Parish.

Catherine does not appear in the 1841 or 1851 census for the area and, as there seems to be a large cluster of HORN names in the Berkhamsted area as well as just over the Buckinghamshire border in Ivinghoe, it is difficult to establish her parentage.  I have also been trying to track her down in various sets of microfiches I've bought for nearby villages, but so far no luck!

It's inspiration I need, I've run out of ideas!!

This type of problem is always difficult and I will throw out a few ideas - but don't have a sure-fire answer. Whether it can be solved can depend on luck as to what documents have survived. One of my ancestors was born in Aylesbury at about this time and the crucial clue to parentage turned up as a one line entry in a bulky account book, while a supporting clue came from a contemporary private diary which had been reprinted in a Victorian newspaper and the cutting stuck in a scrapbook which is now in the Buckinghamshire Records Office. (I found the latter while looking in the scrap book for a different branch of the family.)

• Find out what parish records have survived, most likely at HALS, and which are on microfilm and available through your local LDS Family History Centre. If there are rate books they will record the names of rate payers in the parish, while overseers' account books will record payments to the poor, to local traders, and occasional receipts. In my case the search turned up a payment by the father to the overseers for the expenses associated with the mother's lying in month. It is clear that there was no dispute as to who the father was - and hence no need for any formal bastardy records. 
• Family reconstruction of all nearby persons with the same surname in the area, from a variety of sources, is very time consuming and can be helpful, and may provide evidence for non-conformist families whose children were not baptised in the parish churches - but whose marriages and and burials were so recorded.
• Given names run in families - so it is possible that any other Catherine (or Kate) Horn could be a close relative. It may well be that one of Catherine's daughters was named after Catherine's mother - but unfortunately the names are sufficiently common to make this test of limited value. See The Inheritance of Christian Names.
• Parishes did their best to minimise their financial liabilities - which meant that pregnant unmarried mothers without residential qualifications were extremely unpopular - as if a child was born in the parish the parish became responsible for it. This means that one of the following is probably true:
  • Catherine was born in Little Gaddesden
  • Catherine was brought up in Little Gaddesden - so her parents lived there
  • Catherine was a widow - whose had lived in Little Gaddesden with her late husband. (This turned out to be the situation in my case.)
  • Catherine has adequate financial support from some source.
• In relation to Catherine's children it is possible that there was more than one father - and the change of naming policy in the case of William Henry Horn could indicate a "higher class" father (two given names were unusual in most rural parishes at this date). In fact one might wonder if the father was called William and/or Henry.
• A check of the National Burial Index shows that there were 20 Horn burials in Little Gaddesden between 1800 and 1850 - but this did not include any of Catherine's children. An unmarried mother who successfully raised seven children almost certainly had some income/support, perhaps from her parents, or the father.
• The occupation/economic status of the children may well indicate Catherine's social status - and hence the level of financial support she had. See All things bright and beautiful. There might also be a possibility of cousin marriages - which could provide an alternative route to Catherine's parents.

A final thought - If you have other ancestors in the area, it may prove just as profitable to concentrate on them but keep and eye open for Horn links, as to make a full frontal approach to the task, and end up spending hundreds of hours banging your head on a brick wall getting nowhere.