This is one in a whole series of “NAME NOT KNOWN” Scottish mothers. Who the father was, or at least who in the eyes of the law claimed to be the father, was a matter of moral and legal interest. Parentage from a socio-economic perspective: EVERYONE at the time KNEW who gave birth, that was quite obvious to all living at the time and was never conceived of as potentially coming into question. The issue of WHO was the actual father (or WHO was willing to claim male parentage) was a matter of legal interest. We must also remember that inheritance and everything else hinged on the male line, not the female. It is only us, many centuries later who are uncertain about mothers, and frankly even care. The addition of “unknown” mothers in records such as this is an unnecessary complication and expectation of the historical source documents, and falsely reading a historical confusion over maternity when NONE existed at the time, it was simply not considered to be an important point to record at the time, and even redundant. Hopefully, the records will catch up to this and eliminate these ghost mothers. Here I am starting a discussion on what is the best practice for listing parentage when the preserved records ONLY provide the fathers. The current practice of injecting a mythical unknown mother and claiming that the known mother is a stepmother is problematic.
