LOOK UP REQUEST PLEASE, C May to Alfred Byles and Catherine Byles to Gregerson

[CaroleW]

At least your FH has a bit of "meat" to it whereas my lot were just born, married and died without any scandal etc.  I would have loved to have found something juicy like this.

It's sad that Catherine was widowed only 4yrs after she married Niels but strange that she then reverted to her maiden name 

[cuffie81]

Did you notice the Frances May + Matilda Turner marriage on the same page in the Sep 1917 index, so also at Holy Trinity.

Well spotted John.

Same day as well and one of the witnesses appears to be the same, although on one record the name appears to be A H Byles and W H Byles on the other.


Marriage
married: 09 Sep 1917; Holy Trinity, Harrow Green, Leytonstone; banns
groom: Francis[1] May; 59; wid; foreman; 39 Frith Road
bride: Matilda Turner; 45; wid; -; 94 Birkbeck? Road
grooms father: George May (dec), policeman
brides father: Nathanael? Moule (dec), farm labourer
witnesses: A H Byles, N? Bashford, Frank Williams

[1] Looks to me as if recorded and signed as Francis rather than Frances.

[jamcat95]

Hi again Louisa Maud
I took the liberty in looking for Niels Gregersen in Denmark for you. You may have these:

Birth - Skanderborg, Tolstrup Parish - 27 Apr 1877:
http://ao.sa.dk/ao/data.ashx?bid=28643290

1901 Census - Odense, Ejby Parish - He was in London in 1900:
http://ao.sa.dk/ao/data.ashx?bid=1905255


Ian

[Umbrageous]

In response to your wish to trace the connection between Catherine Edith Ellen  May and   Albert or Alfred  Byles I can tell you that Catherine Edith Ellen May married this man in 1917  in complete ignorance of his marital status. After the scandal of his arrest and imprisonment she continued to live with her father and stepmother and her own daughter.

Once she was saddled with having changed her name to Byles she did not want to draw attention to her own family name of May and married Niels Gregersen  as Catherine Byles, widow. At that period there were several thousand widows as a consequence of World War 1 and marrying as a spinster again  with a thirteen year old daughter would have generated gossip.  Catherine was obliged to relinquish the company of Niels who nagged and drank, and he left  for several years. When he became ill he returned and was cared for at 39 Frith Road  until his death in 1927. His death was registered by Francis May in his role of head of household and Catherine's father.

At least your FH has a bit of "meat" to it whereas my lot were just born, married and died without any scandal etc.  I would have loved to have found something juicy like this.

It's sad that Catherine was widowed only 4yrs after she married Niels but strange that she then reverted to her maiden name 

Read my previous comment. Niels was not good company. He left for several years and returned when he was ill and had no-one else to look after him. A private detective had informed Catherine upon Niels' death and her application for a widows' pension that she was not eligible as he had a living wife. She reverted to her maiden name as discovering she had in fact been married twice to two bigamists was appalling to her and she wanted no connection with them.

[louisa maud]

Apologies for not replying sooner, have just returned from a week away in Minorca, will write a proper reply tomorrow, I was unable to reply from my iPod pad or whatever it is called

Louisa Maud

[CaroleW]

A Niels Gregerson is mentioned in this post

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=793875.new#new

[louisa maud]

Yes Carole, same family puzzle

Louisa Maud

[louisa maud]

Umbrageous, I am intrigued as to how you know so much about Niels Gregerson

Louisa Maud

[Umbrageous]

Catherine Edith Ellen May was my grandmother. Her daughter, Ivy May was my mother, born in 1910 with no listed father. In those days illegitimacy carried a stigma borne by the entire family. Women could be sent to mental institutions as it was considered that any female who took such a risk as intimacy without marriage had to be insane. Catherine was supported by her parents until her mother died in  June 1917. Both Catherine and her father met partners and married on the same day September 9th 1917.

Niels Gregersen married my grandmother in 1923 after her tragic encounter with Alfred Byles. My mother was thirteen at the time and told me of hearing Niels nagging her mother, downstairs, from her room, in the evening. He was a heavy drinker and left for some years. My grandmother took him in when he was ill in 1927 and he died of peritonitis complications.
When my grandmother applied for a widows' pension a private detective turned up and told her he had a living wife and she was ineligible. From information gleaned from these pages it seems that his living wife may have had a living husband at the time my grandmother married Niels Gregersen.
I should be interested to know the details of the death of Gottfried Haslebacher first husband of Elisabeth Haslebacher as the injustice of my grandmother's being refused the pension shows how flawed the entire system of the recording of births,marriages and deaths is, in the UK.