Question about Illegitimate Names on Birth Certificate

[email@mariconda.com]

I have been extensively researching my Italian ancestry. My grandmother’s birth certificate shows her mother and father’s names. Interestingly, I found a bunch of births to her father, all with a different mother. Some before her birth, some after.

But, on her birth certificate, it says after her mother’s name, "sua moglie, contadina, secolui convivente" , which I understand to mean "his wife, peasant farmer, living with him." It also says that about the other birth mother on all the other babies’ certificates, with the exception of “filatrice” instead of “contadina”, meaning seamstress instead of
peasant farmer.

I cannot find evidence that I have her father wrong. On the contrary, I have a DNA match with a descendant of one of the children of the different mother….50% chance she is half second cousin, which she would be if the we shared the same great grandfather.

My question is, could it be possible the father acknowledged the baby and said, for purposes of the birth certificate, they were married?

[Italysearcher]

If it was a small town and he was born there the registration clerks would have known if and to whom he was married.
Check the death records to see if the mothers' died.
Check the marriage records to see who he married.
You may find there was more than one person with the father's name/surname in the town.