Living in sin!

[suttontrust]

I was researching for a friend and couldn't find any record of her grandparents' marriage.  My friend insisted that they must have been married, the old lady was fiercely in favour of marriage.  But it turned out that, unknown to her descendants, she was the illegitimate daughter of a teenage servant girl and was brought up by her grandparents.  She was almost certainly not married to her "husband".  She became fiercely respectable, perhaps to compensate for her own guilt.  It was common enough.

[YvonneR]

Sorry for this.. a bit out of order  

but just want to say

A big Hello and welcome to Rootschat to Ellen from New York[/size][/color]

A dear friend that I haven't spoken to for a while

I will send you a PM

Agnes

[Shropshire Lass]

She was almost certainly not married to her "husband".  She became fiercely respectable, perhaps to compensate for her own guilt.  It was common enough.

I've come across the same thing.  The relation in question was very straight-laced and moral.  It was only because she was ranting about a young unmarried couple having a baby (in the 1960s when it still wasn't the done thing) when an even older relation muttered "She's a fine one to talk!" that it came to light. 

Monica

[Welsh Jules]

I've discovered that my paternal grandparents were never married, both me and a cousin are researching the family history and neither of us have found a marriage record, my grandmother had quite an unusual name so after going through the whole of the marriage index for England and Wales 4 times I'm pretty sure I'd have found one if it was there.

They had 8 children 7 of whom are still alive and although we've not shouted the lack of a marriage from the roof tops our research has got back to some of them and 2 in particular are very very upset about whta we've discovered.

As much as I love my hobby there are times when you wish you could put those worms back in the can especially when it affects living relations. Just to add, my father found the news all rather amusing.

[julianb]

She was almost certainly not married to her "husband".  She became fiercely respectable, perhaps to compensate for her own guilt.  It was common enough.

I've come across the same thing. The relation in question was very straight-laced and moral. It was only because she was ranting about a young unmarried couple having a baby (in the 1960s when it still wasn't the done thing) when an even older relation muttered "She's a fine one to talk!" that it came to light.

Monica

We've found this one too - there's nothing like the zealousness of a "convert", although in this case the individual concerned was married  but she herself had been illegitimate.  One of her sons couldn't stop laughing about it. 

They had 8 children 7 of whom are still alive and although we've not shouted the lack of a marriage from the roof tops our research has got back to some of them and 2 in particular are very very upset about whta we've discovered.

.........  Just to add, my father found the news all rather amusing.

But it's a shame if other family members can't take the facts for what they were.  Times were different then, and we cannot judge from here and now what the pressures and constraints were back then.

JULIAN

[Meaglin]

It really is still a difficult subject to bring up with living relatives, even today in an enlightened society.
I have tried every possible avenue to find a marriage for my ggrandparents but with no success, it just makes it that more difficult to find a birth and take things back further.
Thank you for all your thoughts and experiences I will just have to keep on trying it maybe that I am over looking the obvious!
I really believe all our relatives are sitting up there having a good giggle at us pulling our hair out!!
Thank you once again for your support
Meaglin

[haze73]

Hi,

Just a quick thought - what years are you checking for, for the marriage?

I have two people in my tree that only got married just before their eldest son got married. My friend searched without guessing the year, after getting nowhere, and came up trumps.  But on the earlier censuses the woman said she was the man's wife anyway... you would, wouldn't you?! My point is, don't rule any year out, even if they would've been 60+!

I'm lucky, I have a family that don't mind stuff like that - we have a bit of a giggle about it. And my mum's a priest!

[Cell]

Hi,

Just a quick thought - what years are you checking for, for the marriage?

I have two people in my tree that only got married just before their eldest son got married. My friend searched without guessing the year, after getting nowhere, and came up trumps.  But on the earlier censuses the woman said she was the man's wife anyway... you would, wouldn't you?! My point is, don't rule any year out, even if they would've been 60+!

I'm lucky, I have a family that don't mind stuff like that - we have a bit of a giggle about it. And my mum's a priest!

Hi,
I quite agree don't rule out the really later years, as I have one of these examples of marrying years and years later after the children's births  in my tree too; My Great grandfather was born in 1873  and he also had a few older siblings too born to the same parents- His parents married in 1884 (11 yrs after his birth), they were living in sin for years , and living together as husband and wife in the census .

It  took around about 14/15 yrs to tie the knot -his father was 61 time he got married, his mum was in early 50's
The only thing that I can guess why my lot took so long to tie the knot is the father's mum didn't like his intended as  they actually married the year after his  mother died.

They married in the local church too  (where everyone would have known they had been living  together for years as" husband and wife" ), so they obviously weren't all that coy about either .

Kind Regards