Marriage for George HERBERT Chesham

[Bherbe]

I am looking for the marriage of my 4 x Great Grandfather George HERBERT to Esther (Unknown, possibly GEORGE). The only clue I have is a Settlement Examination for George HERBERT from St Martin in the Fields, Westminster in 1825 where it states that they were married in Chesham, Bucks in 1808. From the 1851 census it appears Esther was born in Lincolnshire but I do not know the birthplace of George HERBERT (perhaps Chesham!) as he seems to have died before 1841. Any help would be greatly appreciated to confirm the marriage and therefore the surname of my 4 x Great Grandmother. Many thanks, Bev

[philipsearching]

FreeReg has transcripts from Phillimore's Marriages for Chesham.
https://www.freereg.org.uk/

I tried a search using just the name George from 1800 to 1825, then just Esther/Ester/Hester from 1805-1825, and came up with nothing remotely resembling the couple.

Philip

[emeltom]

FreeReg also has Chesham marriages 1636-1837 and nothing coming up. It could have been a nonconformist marriage I suppose.

Emeltom

[Bherbe]

Thank you both. Yes, I had tried FreeReg and come up empty handed. I was hoping that someone had access to images of the pages of the Parish Registers for that time period to check 1808. I have a feeling they may have been non-conformists due to batch baptisms of children later on but have also checked at the Genealogist for Non-Conformist records and found nothing. The Settlement examination was the biggest clue I had found in ages so I suppose I am very reluctant to think it leads nowhere I will keep searching - someone told me that Chesham is in a deep valley and may have been cut off in winter meaning that a marriage at that time may have been registered elsewhere. I might have to make a trip there to try and eliminate other parishes too.

[ciderdrinker]

Hi
There's a George Herbert baptised at Chesham 28 Mar 1781 s of John and Mary Herbert

Siblings Elizabeth 1779,Joseph 1786 ,Mary born 28.3.1787 bapt 27.4.1789 at the Independent chapel with sister Hannah born 5.8.1789.Mary buried 8.7.1789.Mary 11.6.1791 again at the Indep Chapel ,buried 29.1.1799 and Martha born 5.2.1794 bapt 23.3.1794.She was buried 18.1.1801.

George and Esther's oldest child I can see is Joseph born 1812.

Ciderdrinker

[philipsearching]

Hi
There's a George Herbert baptised at Chesham 28 Mar 1781 s of John and Mary Herbert

Siblings Elizabeth 1779,Joseph 1786 ,Mary born 28.3.1787 bapt 27.4.1789 at the Independent chapel with sister Hannah born 5.8.1789.Mary buried 8.7.1789.Mary 11.6.1791 again at the Indep Chapel ,buried 29.1.1799 and Martha born 5.2.1794 bapt 23.3.1794.She was buried 18.1.1801.

George and Esther's oldest child I can see is Joseph born 1812.

Ciderdrinker

Nice find.  That does add weight to emeltom's idea of a nonconformist marriage.  I'm still poking around online but haven't spotted one.

Philip

[Bherbe]

Hello all - thank you for the new input. I had found the Chesham non-conformist family mentioned above and will put a tree together for them to see what shakes out - of course, the one child that does not appear is "George" . Apparently Chesham was famous for non-conformists and boot makers - my George was a shoemaker so this also fits. George and Esther's children were Joseph (1812), George (1814), James (1816), John (1818), Mary Ann/e (1821), Francis William (1823), Thomas (1825) and William (1829) in case that helps in any way - there are a few names in common with the Chesham family but none particularly unusual of course.

Am I correct in thinking that non-conformists would have had to "legally" be married in an Anglican Church despite their non-conformity (unless they were Quakers)? Should there be a Church record of the marriage somewhere? Or is it likely they just married "illegally" in their own way? I have quite a lot of non-conformity in my tree but usually find a Church record somewhere (maybe years later) for baptisms - not much experience with a missing non-conformist marriage though....

Thanks again for looking

Bev