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Nacimiento natural


cedros

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I'm looking at civil registration for Michoacan for the 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds. After the name of the child they say "natural". I wonder what would be the opposite of natural in these cases. 

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That all I could think it  might be but I didn't think they were doing Cesareans in those days.

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1 hour ago, CYNTHI said:

A fatherless child, a bastard?

No, no, no!  That does not make the child un-natural.

It has to do with the type of birth process; natural vaginal childbirth vs cesarean section.

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2 hours ago, Yo1 said:

It means that the father is not around or the couple is not married.  Otherwise, it would say the the child was legal.

 

That's right.  'Natural' means illegitimate child, a child born outside marriage.  This legal distinction no longer exists.

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For weeks I have been looking at birth registrations in Michoacan and Jalisco. Currently I'm looking at 1909. Natural birth is used for virtually all of them so it can't mean illegitimate. I'm looking at some more of them today. I will note what they record when the child is illegitimate.

I've just looked at 50 more birth registrations and they all said natural. This is in Michoacan in 1909. For both states from about 1850 on. I should have paid more attention when I was checking each one but they aren't easy to read. The wording probably changes over time.

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Here's an old joke for you--in Spanish, no adequate translation possible.  

Un viejito se casa con una señora ya grande.  Después de la boda, van a su hogar y empiezan a desvestirse.  El viejito queda maravillado al ver a su nueva esposa quitarse de su peluca, luego de su dentadura postiza, luego de un seno postizo.  En voz indignada, le dice, "Oígame señora, no tiene nada natural?"  Con una sonrisa enorme la vieja le grita, "Sí señor, un hijo!"

Proves the point in spoken language; can you scan one of the birth certificates so I can see how/where the 'natural' is used on it?  This is so interesting to me...

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I can't scan one of these records as they are on line. Invariably it goes like this .... nombre Francisca America hija natural de (the parents names.)  

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1 hour ago, cedros said:

I can't scan one of these records as they are on line. Invariably it goes like this .... nombre Francisca America hija natural de (the parents names.)  

I just googled significado hijo natural de

ALL the references say the same thing: "illegitimate child of..."  Try it, just as I have it in italics up there.  You'll see.

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It definitely does not mean illegitimate in the ones I have looked at. Maybe at another time or place it might.

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8 hours ago, cedros said:

It definitely doesn not mean illegitimate in the ones I have looked at. Maybe at another time or place.

If it says--as you mentioned--hija natural de (and both parents' names), it still means born without benefit of marriage OR without sufficient lapse of time between marriage and birth OR due to divorce prior to birth.  It's not about an absent parent; it's about the parents' marriage.

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44 minutes ago, More Liana said:

If it says--as you mentioned--hija natural de (and both parents' names), it still means born without benefit of marriage OR without sufficient lapse of time between marriage and birth OR due to divorce prior to birth.  It's not about an absent parent; it's about the parents' marriage.

I have read several thousand of them now and in many (most, all?) it can't mean the above. I'm not sure quite why it is used but in time I may get it.

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You may be surprised how many people live like husband and wives and have children  and are not legally married. I know that when I started helping people filling out government forms I could not believe how few people are legally married and have large families

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2 hours ago, bmh said:

You may be surprised how many people live like husband and wives and have children  and are not legally married. I know that when I started helping people filling out government forms I could not believe how few people are legally married and have large families

That's certainly true now and was even more frequent in the past, the era that Cedros is investigating.  People often either simply didn't 'make it legal', for one reason or another, or couldn't afford to marry, or...many, many different reasons.  It doesn't surprise me at all that Cedros is finding so many "...hijo natural de..." listings in his research.  The parents may have lived together without benefit of marriage, they may not have met the requirements of a "legitimate" birth of their child(ren), etc.

 http://universojus.com/definicion/hijo-natural

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A number of the ones I've looked at say hijo natural as well as that the parents are married. I will have to keep closer track of what the next few hundred I look at say.

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1 hour ago, cedros said:

A number of the ones I've looked at say hijo natural as well as that the parents are married. I will have to keep closer track of what the next few hundred I look at say.

Yes, the parents can be married.  BUT--according to old law, they had to have been legally married for a certain length of time prior to conception/birth for the child not to be considered an hijo natural.  The last link I posted gives a lot of information about what the duties of a parent are toward an hijo natural, what the duties of an hijo natural are toward his/her parents, and how an hijo natural can be legitimized.  

All of this certainly sounds archaic now, doesn't it?

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Even now it seems that being legally married is not a priority...Many of the married people I know got married after years of living together ..I have a friend who moved in with her husband at age 14..so there is no marrying at that age.. then they just did not bother, did not have the money for the party..have 3 children  and now at 35 my friend is thinking of getting married. the 3 kids are of course all " natural".. I can imagine that before that was the rule amongst people who did not have much money.. 

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  • 2 months later...
On 4/11/2017 at 7:04 AM, cedros said:

I can't scan one of these records as they are on line. Invariably it goes like this .... nombre Francisca America hija natural de (the parents names.)  

If that is the context then it indeed means that the parents were not married. I'm surprised that nearly all births were so listed, though.

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