Did my great-grandparents ever marry?

[Ayashi]

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...

[JenB]

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?)

[Mart 'n' Al]

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

[JenB]

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.

[heywood]

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

[coombs]

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.

[lisalisa]

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.

[heywood]

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.

[Mart 'n' Al]

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