Telling it Like it Is

Since I still cannot sort out the relationship of my husband's gg-grandfather to the widowed man his mother married long after his and his brothers' births (no father mentioned in the records), I was surprised when looking for my father's ancestors that sometimes the fathers of "hijos naturales" were mentioned (exposed?) in the records even when the father was married to someone else. I kind of suspect that in some cases a woman who had children out of wedlock had been impregnated by a married man and could not marry him until he was "free" ("viudo" after his previous wife died) to be made an honest woman of.

Here are some examples of the "exposed" fathers (from the records of the Tepetongo Church in Zacatecas, circa 1842-1850):

---"hijo natural de Viviana Soriano y por dicho de la pareda es hijo de Juan Roman, casado"---

---"hija natural de Maria Carrillo y de notoriedad publica de Leonardo Garcia"--

---"hijo natural de Maria del Refugio Carrillo y por declaracion de madre de Ramon Soriano, de estado soltero"--

---""hijo natural de Josefa de la Torre y de notoriedad publica de Luis Soriano"---

I had never seen such examples in the thousands of records I have viewed. I really don't understand the term "notoriedad publica"---public notoriety? gossip? rumor? Most records in this film simply stated the child was "hijo natural de" and made no mention of the fathers. In some other films I have seen the term "escrito en el libro secreto" when referring to the fathers' or parents' names. I am left to wonder what caused this lapse in confidentiality in the written record, this "telling it like it is".

Emilie Garcia
Port Orchard, WA ---