Tom Christie was the man behind the obituary in Outlander. Why would he say Claire and Jamie had no children when he knew about Bree?
In the books, the obituary reads that Claire and Jamie had no surviving children. That’s not the case in the show. The obituary just doesn’t mention Brianna. Now that we know Tom was responsible for the obituary in the paper, why would he not mention their daughter?
Of course, this is all taken from the books. Tom doesn’t mention Bree in the books either, and it’s not clear exactly why. To make it worse in the books, he outright states that the Frasers have no surviving kin. Does he assume everyone else died in the fire, too?
But what about in the series? Why doesn’t he mention them in the obituary?
Does Tom explain the obituary in Outlander?
It turns out that this isn’t something Claire thinks to ask about. Nothing comes up about why Bree isn’t mentioned.
What’s strange is that Hector Cameron is mentioned in the obituary. I guess this was done in a way for Tom not to make it clear that it was he who wrote it. By not mentioning the children and grandchildren, he wouldn’t open a can of worms of Bree and Roger coming to look for him.
I also question Fergus not being mentioned. Tom had taken Malva in as his daughter despite her being his niece. Jamie had done something similar with Fergus. Wouldn’t Tom recognize that? Maybe he didn’t mention anything to prevent Fergus coming to look for him, or to prevent problems for Fergus in the future.
It doesn’t make sense, but this isn’t a show problem to fix. This is a question that’s arisen from the books and still hasn’t been explained. I guess it never will be.