1851/1861 Census Lookup - Elizabeth Pritchard and James Watkins

[osprey]

indeed!

 

[avm228]

I wonder whether Cherryl has followed up on the suggestion made on the old thread that Lizzie may have been born Elizabeth Whitcombe, mmn Watkins?

[OnTheRoad]

Many thanks Roots Chatters for eliminating the Pritchards from my line of enquiry - and I thought it looked so promising .

However as pointed out by Osprey and AVM228, there was a lot of information provided to me in February 2017 which I must confess, confused me very much at the time. We were about to go overseas for 8 months and I dropped the ball for a while. You have now prompted me to re-examine that line of enquiry and, by setting up a tree in A**, I am starting to make sense of the ideas put forward 2 years ago. It looks as if the father of my Elizabeth Watkins could well be James Whitcombe, and the mother may be Sarah Watkins - the sister of his wife Anne Watkins, who lived with them for many years. I think Anne died sometime before 1861 and Sarah continued living with James perhaps initially as a housekeeper (they may or may not have married) and had a number of children with him, one of whom may have been my Elizabeth. Now that I understand what was being put forward by Ambly back in 2017, I will continue following that line and will post back here when I either confirm or reluctantly have to deny this relationship.

May I also say how much I appreciate all of the input received so far - I would never have picked up the linkages to the Whitcombe family without your help.

All the best
Cherryl

[avm228]

At the relevant time it was in fact unlawful for a man to marry his deceased wife’s sister.  Some couples in this situation went through a ceremony of marriage anyway (though the legal defect rendered the marriage void), but many cohabited without marriage.

The position was changed by legislation in the 20th century in the form of the Deceased Wife’s Sister Marriage Act 1907.

[OnTheRoad]

Many thanks for this additional information. It certainly makes this a very likely / feasible scenario and I am continuing my research along those lines.
Thank you so much for taking an interest. I will report back when I have discovered more.
All the best
Cherryl