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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Mart 'n' Al on Thursday 18 April 19 15:02 BST (UK)
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My great-grandparents, George Leggett and Jane Adamson were together in North Yorkshire and later Hartlepool between 1892 and at least 1900. During that time they had six children and we have copies of the birth certificates of them all. We can find no record of a marriage. The first five children were recorded with George being the father. The sixth, rather oddly, was registered under the name of Jane's late first husband who had died in 1891. I have two questions.
Firstly, is the non-marriage as unlikely as it seems to be to me? Being unmarried, and having 6 children seems a little bit odd, but we do have doubts about whether George was still married to an earlier lady. Possibly he wasn't free to be married.
Secondly could somebody clarify the procedure for trying to order a possibly non-existent marriage certificate. I see on the GRO website I have to specify the year of the marriage and registration and I just want to check that there isn't an easier way of going through the process 10 or more times, for each possible year. Also, would I only be charged if a possible appropriate marriage was discovered? I understand that there might have been a marriage between some other George Leggett and Jane Adamson, but this does seem quite unlikely. I realise I might end up with the wrong certificate, but I just don't want to be charged several times for a non certificate.
Martin
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I am taking the liberty of linking to this thread, on which there is a lot more information about George and Jane. https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=804649.msg6629807#msg6629807
On that thread opinion seems to have been that they didn't marry.
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Jen, most of that is what I already know. (It was actually me who wrote most of it.)
I am looking for fresh eyes, from newcomers, in the light of new developments and updated records, but thanks anyway. Do you have any advice on what I asked about certificates?
Martin
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Jen, most of that is what I already know. (It was actually me who wrote most of it.)
Yes, I do realise that you already know all of this!
I felt that the link might be of benefit to others who wanted to know more about the family and save duplication of information.
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My great great great grandparents weren't married. She was a widow and he was sent to prison whilst she was pregnant with their first child. They had at least another 5 children and she was always listed with his surname from then on, other than when one of the children had her dead husband's surname but hey new partner's surname as his middle name, and her dead when she's listed as the widow of her dead husband.
Their daughter had about 6 kids between 1868 and 1877, all named her 'husband's' surname (other than one) and they then married in 1877.
So it did happen. Not often though. They're two that come to mind in my tree
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. . .
Secondly could somebody clarify the procedure for trying to order a possibly non-existent marriage certificate. I see on the GRO website I have to specify the year of the marriage and registration and I just want to check that there isn't an easier way of going through the process 10 or more times, for each possible year. Also, would I only be charged if a possible appropriate marriage was discovered? I understand that there might have been a marriage between some other George Leggett and Jane Adamson, but this does seem quite unlikely. I realise I might end up with the wrong certificate, but I just don't want to be charged several times for a non certificate.
Martin
Most of the answers to your queries will be found here Most customers want to know (https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/most_customers_want_to_know.asp)
Scroll down to:-
What records can be ordered and how much does it cost? Q6. although it may be advisable to read the whole section.
Yes! You will be charged for an unsuccessful search, they now retain £3.50, there is also a £3.00 fee for a search without a ref no. AND there is now a £4.00 fee if you apply by post or telephone!
Getting an unknown certificate is extremely expensive these days.
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Here's what GRO say about ordering without their reference - the good news is that they'll search a year either side of your 'educated guess' date, so you get three goes for the price of one :D
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Ben, Mac, Carol, thank you. I didn't see the helpful hints at all.
Martin
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Ben, Mac, Carol, thank you. I didn't see the helpful hints at all.
Martin
It's the third option in the box to the right on the GRO home page. (https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/) (Where it says 'Register/Login')
One does not need to Register nor Login to view it.
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I once asked Anthony Adolph on a live chat about why some people never seemed to marry but appeared married. He said "For lots of reasons people claimed to be married when they were not". I think Martin you may have to accept the "elephant in the room" that they never actually married. I have a Sylvanius Clift and Minnie Richardson who said to be married but never actually married. And a few others who should have married after civil reg begun but never seemed to, unless there was a gross mis-transcription or a missed entry, which is possible for your George Leggett. I read the book "A comedy of errors" about missing entries in the GRO index when they did actually take place.
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I have a feeling that some Non-conformist or Quaker marriages may not be easily available online. C of E is easiest, and R C is getting better in many areas, but my non-conformist lot, if they didn't bow to the legalities of the Parish church, seem very elusive!
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I was at a talk at WDYTYA Live (the last one at Olympia) and (to paraphrase) the speaker mentioned that sometimes local priests were slow to return their registers in a given quarter and the entries missed being included in the GRO's index. He gave the example of his daughter whose marriage does not show up in the indexes, but he knows it happened, as he was present. It was available if you enquired at the local office. He did quote estimated numbers that this applied to, but I cannot remember them know.
Obviously this won't apply to most of the "missing" marriages - they were just "living in sin", but it is worth bearing in mind as a possibility.
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I have some serial marriage-averse people on the tree.
My maternal great-grandparents did not marry in the early 20th century. Great-granny had married at age 17 and then seems to have deserted her husband and older son for my great-grandfather (and more children). Her younger son from her marriage used her new partner's name for the rest of his life.
My paternal great-grandparents did not marry, although both were free to do so. Great-granny had three partners - two husbands (got both marriage certificates) but did not marry my grt-grandfather (middle partner). Grt-grandfather did not marry his first partner either, although birth certificates for all bar one child would appear to indicate that they did. And his father did not marry until after his 6th child arrived over 15 years into the relationship! All children were baptised with their father's name.
And I have no idea why.
Nell
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The only irregular marriage I can think of that appears in my tree is John F RICHARDS to Ellen GILL... Nobody could find it, until I saw something and took a punt at it. The marriage, as John RICHARDS and Ellen RICHARDS, occurred when she was six months pregnant with their third child and coincided with him enlisting in the army, so presumably in order to get certain marriage benefits!
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Firstly, Macwill, I meant that I didn't originally seen the hints but thank you.
Jane Adamson, my great grandmother was briefly married and widowed in 1889/90 before taking up with George Leggett my great grandfather.
The main reason I am interested in finding the second marriage certificate if it exists is to be sure about what their respective parents did for jobs as there is some doubt about the parents.
Can anyone tell me, how likely is it that a father's name could appear incorrectly on a transcribed certificate, without the (literate) bride ever being aware.
The bride was called Jane Adamson and her father is named as Edward Adamson, engineer, but we believe that Jane was raised by her father, Edwin Potter, but Jane continued to use her mother's maiden name as she was conceived before the marriage to Edwin Potter.
So after a lot of research I think it is feasible that somebody misheard the name Edwin and wrote Edward, and assumed that because the bride's surname was Adamson it was believed that the father's name would also be Adamson. Sherlock Holmes said that once you rule out the impossible, whatever is left, however unlikely, that is the solution.
I have looked at census entries for 1871, 1881, and 1891 for every Edward Adamson in the country and the closest to an engineer I was able to get were a gas fitter and a boilermaker, neither of which would really be described as engineers. Both of these were described as single men.
Can anyone with local knowledge of Durham or North Yorkshire, where the wedding would have taken place, in 1889 if there was one, give any further suggestions?
Martin
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. . .
Can anyone tell me, how likely is it that a father's name could appear incorrectly on a transcribed certificate, without the (literate) bride ever being aware.
. . .
Martin
Very!
I have seen one story of a relatively recent marriage where the bridegroom checked the certificate one final
time before putting it in his pocket and only then realising that his new father-in-law was described as deceased, despite having given the bride away minutes earlier AND being acquainted with the officials conducting the proceedings. Red faces all round and hasty corrections.
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I've had a few occupations that were wrong or switched around. The aforementioned Ellen GILL who married as Ellen RICHARDS had her father down as William RICHARDS (who was William GILL). I can well imagine "So, what's your name?" "Ellen Richards" "And what is your father's name?" "William." "Righto..."
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Can anyone tell me, how likely is it that a father's name could appear incorrectly on a transcribed certificate, without the (literate) bride ever being aware.
Very easily, I think.
Not quite the same, but I have a certificate where the middle name of the bride's father was entered incorrectly by the vicar. He had prefilled out the register - and the certificate that he handed to the newly-married couple. It was noticed but not corrected and all parties were literate.
Nell
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That reminds me- I've got a death certificate where the surname of the deceased had the spelling amended some months after the registration occurred. The corrected spelling was also wrong, or at least not the spelling used on all other documents. A little matter of curiosity...
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From your other thread George married a Mary Boynton in 1862. It seems she is in Scarborough in 1871 and 1881 with daughter Mary Jane.
If I have the right person Mary still appears to be in Scarborough in 1901 with daughter Mary J.
(RG 13/3532/45/36) and possibly died there in 1914.
If this is Mary (Boynton) then George wasn't 'free' to marry Jane at the appropriate time.
(If I am following the right person - can you confirm?)
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Jen, as I said earlier we know that, but it doesn't mean that he didn't have a bigamist's marriage. I asked a different question. And a subsequent one.
Mary Boynton Leggett was still describing herself as married. Jane Adamson was widowed.
Martin
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Jen, as I said earlier we know that,
In your initial posting you said we do have doubts about whether George was still married to an earlier lady. Possibly he wasn't free to be married.
I was just trying to clarify that point and to understand what was going on with Mary. Presumably you had mentioned in your earlier thread that Mary was still living in Scarborough in 1901, and I missed that fact.
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Martin,
If I have read the dates and information correctly, I would say that they didn’t marry.
You seem to want to find a marriage but the records don’t appear to have one.
That they had several children and all but one was registered in George’s name, indicates that they identified as a couple until 1900 as you say.
If you think the record has been omitted from the civil records, have you tried searching the churches were the children were baptised.
Heywood
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Yes sadly for this line I think you are on a hiding to nothing in trying to find their marriage. If they never walked down the altar and tied the knot, then obviously no marriage record will exist.
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The bride was called Jane Adamson and her father is named as Edward Adamson, engineer, but we believe that Jane was raised by her father, Edwin Potter, but Jane continued to use her mother's maiden name as she was conceived before the marriage to Edwin Potter.
So after a lot of research I think it is feasible that somebody misheard the name Edwin and wrote Edward, and assumed that because the bride's surname was Adamson it was believed that the father's name would also be Adamson. Sherlock Holmes said that once you rule out the impossible, whatever is left, however unlikely, that is the solution.
I've had headaches trying to sort out Edwin/Edward/Edmund - which have seemed interchangeable on many occasions.
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The bride was called Jane Adamson and her father is named as Edward Adamson, engineer, but we believe that Jane was raised by her father, Edwin Potter, but Jane continued to use her mother's maiden name as she was conceived before the marriage to Edwin Potter.
So after a lot of research I think it is feasible that somebody misheard the name Edwin and wrote Edward, and assumed that because the bride's surname was Adamson it was believed that the father's name would also be Adamson. Sherlock Holmes said that once you rule out the impossible, whatever is left, however unlikely, that is the solution.
I've had headaches trying to sort out Edwin/Edward/Edmund - which have seemed interchangeable on many occasions.
Jane was born 1860 but her mother’s marriage was 1863. Is Edwin Potter named as her father on Jane’s birth certificate?
It might be that she invented the name Edward (based on her stepfather’s name) when she married.
She states that Edward is an Engineer, whilst Edwin was a Blacksmith, I think.
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This is just a very brief reply until Sunday or Tuesday. While Edwin Potter was a blacksmith in Tudhoe in 1861, I think that this was at a pit or mine, rather than a equine smithy. He subsequent worked in a chemical factory as an engineer in 1891.
The family is split on whether Jane "Leggett" was born in Tudhoe, as she describes herself as from Durham, Durham in later censuses, rather than Tudhoe or Spennymoor. Ultimately, verifying Jane's birthplace is more important than knowing if she married George Leggett.
All the nice help is greatly appreciated. More to follow.
Martin
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Do you not have her birth certificate?
I was thinking this was her from your information
Jane Adamson March quarter 1860 Durham 10a pg 261
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Some of the family thinks so but we are split. What we want to know is if Jane Adamson from Tudhoe is the one with George Leggett in Hartlepool in the 1890s. The birth certificate will only show that a Jane Adamson was born in Tudhoe, and possibly name her parents.
Martin
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Have you or the other family checked the possible Janes in the censuses?
You know yours was married to Henry Thomson for definite.
Your choices, if any, are limited.
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Yes, we have extensively looked into other Jane Adamsons, most of whom are in North Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland and can effectively rule them all out, but that doesn't mean the same as ruling in the one that we think is our ancestor. I just keep hoping somebody will come up with an idea that we have overlooked.
Martin
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Yes, we have extensively looked into other Jane Adamsons, most of whom are in North Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland and can effectively rule them all out, but that doesn't mean the same as ruling in the one that we think is our ancestor. I just keep hoping somebody will come up with an idea that we have overlooked.
Martin
Martin,
this might be something of a long shot and time consuming, but it might be something to try if you haven't already done it . . .
Work back a few more generations on Jane Adamson from Tudhoe if you can, then try those names in a search (using the further back generations) and see if they lead to any trees or (best case) a dna match.
If you find further back generations on a tree, it might be that it's a tree that just goes down one line rather than horizontally (including siblings at each stage, which could include a branch which could be your line).
I'm thinking you might need to go back quite a distance on the possible Jane line (probably to your 4GG at least) and then you could possibly get some lower shared cMs matches.
Alternatively any siblings to Jane, can these be found on trees and possibly lead to dna matches?
My thinking is that if you find a dna match to someone who has the same ancestors as Jane, then (ruling out any connections to another side of your family) a dna match would surely indicate that she is 'Your' Jane.
hope this might be a way forward (or back through the generations),
Lisa
PS sorry I am assuming your results are on ancestry or you use ancestry, which I don't know if you do. If you do, have you tried doing a search on dna matches with Jane's maiden name (or her ancestors) or the birthplace and see what comes up?
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Lisa, thank you for your suggestions. I'm always grateful for ideas, whether or not I've tried them as technology and data can often change. My DNA test was done by my heritage, so I don't have the luxury of the facilities which ancestry have currently added. I've spent a lot of time tracking back both the Leggett family and the Adamson family or in fact as many Adamsons as I've been able to find in the Northeast. I can't find anything to make me think that the Hartlepool Adamson, who is my great grandmother, is different to the one from Tudhoe, but I want a positive connection rather than ruling out negative connections. Thank you again for your comments.
And thanks also to you, Heywood.
Martin