We've already met Mary Hadden 1866 - 1947 and her 2 children with James Welsh.
Mary had two other earlier illegitimate children prior to the Welsh boys. Her first child a girl Mary was born on January 1885 at the home of her mother and stepfather at 410 Brick Row, Cronberry in the parish of Lugar, when Mary was 18. The baby died there at 3 weeks old of whooping cough.
young John Hadden
John Bruce Hadden was born at Pathhead in New Cumnock on the 2 Jan 1888. He is registered as John Hadden by his mother Mary a domestic servant and signed with her X mark, meaning she couldn't read or write which was normal for the time period. Mary continues to work and young John is found living with an aunt and uncle in the 1891 census, by which time Mary had also had James Welsh who was living with Grace Connell. Illegitimate children were either left with another family member often grandparents or else boarded out. Mary would be paying for the upkeep of her sons. Mary had William Welsh in Kilmarnock in 1892 and by this time it was clear James Welsh wasn't going to marry her and she sued him for breach of promise and paternity as reported in the earlier post.
John Bruce Hadden and William Welsh Hadden went with Mary to the USA and married and had children.
DNA testing has provided a clue to the father of John Bruce Hadden. The common ancestors are Andrew Hutchison born in 1840 in Barr a shepherd and his wife Mary Muir. The father is one of his sons of which he had three: John born 1869, William born 1872 and Gilbert born 1874. All of them are younger than Mary who was born in 1866. As more Hutchison descendants test, we should be able to work out which man was John's father. My money's on John! He could have been named after his father. But Mary's father was a John also!
