When is a brother-in-law not a brother-in-law and a stepson not a stepson?

[anonymac]

Hi Guys,

A brother-in-law is the brother of one's spouse.
A stepson is the son of one's spouse from an earlier marriage.

Not hard - right?

I have been looking at the last will and testament of one John Surridge of Clerkenwell and Rainham, Essex who died in 1815. In it he writes:

... I  give devise and bequeath the rest and residue of all my estate to be equally divided between my Brother in Law  Thomas Biggs of South Weald Essex and my Stepsons  John Biggs of No. 3 Saint John Street Clerkenwell  Thomas Biggs of Barking  George Biggs of Southchurch [?]  North Biggs of Barking and my sisters  Ann Livermore of Shenfield,  Sarah Biggs of South Weald and  Elizabeth ffitch of Aveley all in the county of Essex ...

Here's the rub: Brother-in-law Thomas Biggs is the legitimate father of John, Thomas, George, North, Ann and Sarah, all of whom are children he had with his wife Jane nee Finch.

As far as I can see, Jane never married John Surridge. In point of fact, the only way for that to happen would be for Thomas to predecease his wife but clearly, for Thomas to be in the will at all he had to be alive when it was written. I think a divorce is out of the question at this time so how can John, Thomas, George and North be John Surridge's stepsons?

John Surridge appears to have married twice: Once to Ann Bull, Spinster in High Easter in 1762 and once to Mary Deagle, Spinster in Holborn in 1783. In other words, neither of his wives are named Biggs. So how can Thomas Biggs be his Brother in law?

I find myself wondering if the terms brother-in-law, stepson and sister are being used in a different sense to what I expect. Has anyone else come across this before? Is there a context in which they all make sense?

Kind regards,

Glenn.

[groom]

Not really the answer to your question, but son and daughter in law was often used in censuses to mean stepson or step daughter.

Who was Thomas Biggs' father? Could he be the husband of one of John's sisters, that would make him his brother in law as well?

[Berlin-Bob]

Not really the answer to your question, but son and daughter in law was often used in censuses to mean stepson or step daughter.

Several more topics about step and in-law relationships in the
Rootschat Reference Library :
http://surname.rootschat.com/lexicon/reflib-lexicon.php?letter=I

regards,
Bob

[Chilternbirder]

I wouldn't take census details as being Gospel. I have regularly seen minor variations between censuses and sometimes major ones.

[anonymac]

Bob,

Many thanks. Unfortunately none seem to match the problem at hand. Learnt some things though.

Groom,

Thomas' father was Thomas senior but I haven't been able to trace his siblings. The first records I have for him are after his marriage which I guess was sometime in the 1730's.

However, I did realise that one case I was missing is that brother-in-law can also mean a sister's husband. I have one eligible sister for John Surridge being Sarah Surridge. I am thinking perhaps Thomas Biggs married a second time. There are no obvious records on ancestry, findmypast or freereg but perhaps Sarah married as a widow herself in which case I need to trace her married name (whatever that might be) to be able to do a proper search.

It doesn't explain the step-son thing though. Could it perhaps be he just meant step-nephews?

Glenn.

[anonymac]

Peter,

Noted with thanks. I would gently point out the extract in the original post is from a Last will and testament although I take the point.

Glenn.

[snowball]

Hi Glenn,
You may well have exhausted available information from PCC and Essex wills, but I have found the Essex Wills Beneficiaries Index - added to FindMyPast quite recently - useful for untangling relationships.

For example, Thomas Biggs of South Weald is a beneficiary of his sister Elizabeth Offen in 1811 and she seems to have a daughter, Sarah Biggs Bassett, who is also a beneficiary.

There are some Surridge testators and beneficiaries mentioned, although none look too promising, although an Edward Fitch is executor to the will of a J Surridge in 1806.

Regards
Rob

[ThrelfallYorky]

There is a lot of evidence that terms such as "in law" is used rather in a loose way in a lot of historical records, often to indicate stepchildren or other relationships, as well as in census entries. I've found several instances on censuses where S in L has been entered in place of F in L, etc. It's quite frequent to find inexact descriptions of relationships .... and boy, can they mislead one! I spent ages searching for a "nephew" who was in fact the uncle of the H of the Household! It was the H of the Household who was his nephew! Oh dear, they do it to confuse....
Good luck with your research.

[iluleah]

All I can say is  I looked for years for records and details of a "brother" named in a Will, then started to think, maybe it was a brother in law, or maybe it was a religious brother and still found nothing.

Then some years later I was loaned an old note book from the village police constable from their descendants while looking through that I came across the named man in the Will and the "brother" as children who had got into some minor mischief from what I read and concluded they were just life long friends from childhood, who were always together, lived next door to each other, went off to work for the same employer, was "best man" or witness at each others weddings...so thought of themselves as "brothers"