How long before "dirty rotters" in my family got presumed dead?

[Gen List Lass]

I have a  father and son in my family who both deserted their wives and started new lives in Canada and USA, the son remarried bigamously. The father disappeared off the face of the earth or changed his  name!

The father:
Edward Emerson FENWICK was a wine and spirit merchant in Newcastle upon Tyne.
1859 bankrupt
1861 census GONE but wife described as Married. Ten children!
1865 in USA?
1871 wife calling herself a widow
1875 newspaper adverts in USA saying he was in Illinois or Michigan about 1865, please write to son in Newcastle
1879-ish his eldest son Henry Cuthbertson FENWICK did the same trick, went off to Canada leaving? his wife behind and married again in Canada in 1889 bigamously. 6 children by bigamous marriage.

I have loads of info of the son and his new family in Canada but nothing about his father's death.

What was the process back then for getting your spouse presumed dead and getting your hands on any assets he might have left behind.

Gen in NBL England

[avm228]

What was the process back then for getting your spouse presumed dead and getting your hands on any assets he might have left behind.

Application could be made to the court for a declaration of presumption of death on the basis that there was no evidence that the missing person had been alive during the previous seven years; the people most likely to have heard from the missing person had not had any contact; and, during those seven years, inquiries had been made for the missing person, without success.  The last limb of this was often the reason why notices were placed in newspapers.

This common-law procedure existed long before relevant statutory reforms in the 20th and 21st centuries.

My own ggg-grandfather left his wife and children in Glasgow in 1869 and ran off with a younger woman whom he bigamously "married" in Dundee before they embarked almost immediately on a ship headed for the US, never to return. (If he hadn't I wouldn't exist, as I am descended from the bigamous relationship). His deserted wife continued to refer to herself as "married" for a couple of censuses before eventually opting for "widow". I have no idea whether she ever discovered where he had gone.

[Guy Etchells]

I have a  father and son in my family who both deserted their wives and started new lives in Canada and USA, the son remarried bigamously. The father disappeared off the face of the earth or changed his  name!

The father:
Edward Emerson FENWICK was a wine and spirit merchant in Newcastle upon Tyne.
1859 bankrupt
1861 census GONE but wife described as Married. Ten children!
1865 in USA?
1871 wife calling herself a widow
1875 newspaper adverts in USA saying he was in Illinois or Michigan about 1865, please write to son in Newcastle
1879-ish his eldest son Henry Cuthbertson FENWICK did the same trick, went off to Canada leaving? his wife behind and married again in Canada in 1889 bigamously. 6 children by bigamous marriage.

I have loads of info of the son and his new family in Canada but nothing about his father's death.

What was the process back then for getting your spouse presumed dead and getting your hands on any assets he might have left behind.

Gen in NBL England

Nothing wrong in either case apart from leaving their wives (No bigamy involved).
Both had been beyond the seas for over 7 years, so it did not matter if they had been married before they were free to marry under English law

An Act to restrain all Persons from Marriage until their former Wives and former Husbands be dead [1604.] states

“II. Provided always, That this Act, nor any Thing therein contained, shall extend to any Person or Persons whose Husband or Wife shall be continually remaining beyond the Seas by the Space of seven Years together, or whose Husband or Wife shall absent him or herself the one from the other by the Space of seven Years together, in any Parts within his Majesty’s Dominions, the one of them not knowing the other to be living within that Time.”

See : http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~framland/genealogy/acts/1604.htm

Cheers
Guy

PS I should mention the absent partner was not presumed dead in such circumstances.

[Gen List Lass]

avm and Guy

Interesting that the newspaper adverts in several USA newspapers might have been the last shot at proving the case of his presumed death. The mother didn't remarry.

avm - Your 3xg grandfathers case seems very similar to my Fenwicks.

The son was in Newcastle in 1880, missing on the 1881 census, appeared as an immigrant in Canada in 1888 and married the second time in 1889. I always presumed this was a bigamous marriage as his first wife didnt die until 1943 in Vancouver. (She said she arrived in Canada in 1886) Maybe they just agreed to part thinking no-one would ever know.

Gen in NBL England

[Craclyn]

I have a similar situation. Wife is claiming to be a widow on a census in Northumberland. Husband is alive and kicking in Schenectady with a new family. I have not found any documentation that there was an attempt to find him though. She was probably glad to see the back of him as he was in and out of gaol before he fled the country.

[Gen List Lass]

Once voyages to USA, Canada, Australia etc became affordable, there must have been many men and sometimes women who "did a bunk". Whether they told their families that they would look for work/find gold and then send for their families when they'd made their fortune OR just went out one day and never came back, it must have been so easy to start your life again.

On the face of it, we blame the one who hastily leaves but he/she might have been driven by desperation to make a fresh start. At first I thought Mr. Fenwick was just a dirty rotter who deserted his wife and 10 children but he'd lost two baby sons, dissolved his business partnership with his brother and become bankrupt in a short space of time. Possibly it all got too much for him and he had some sort of breakdown.

As there was no trace of him after he disappeared from Newcastle, I sometimes wonder if he got murdered in USA or starved to death somewhere. His body wouldn't be identified and would be buried as an unknown in a paupers grave. Sad and also annoying that I'll probably never know.

Gen in NBL England

[Guy Etchells]

avm and Guy

Interesting that the newspaper adverts in several USA newspapers might have been the last shot at proving the case of his presumed death. The mother didn't remarry.

avm - Your 3xg grandfathers case seems very similar to my Fenwicks.

The son was in Newcastle in 1880, missing on the 1881 census, appeared as an immigrant in Canada in 1888 and married the second time in 1889. I always presumed this was a bigamous marriage as his first wife didnt die until 1943 in Vancouver. (She said she arrived in Canada in 1886) Maybe they just agreed to part thinking no-one would ever know.

Gen in NBL England

One sometimes comes across a marriage in parish registers when a wife of a transported man wishes to re-marry where the vicar note the husband has been transported. This shows the clergy re-married women in knowledge of a former husband being alive.
Cheers
Guy

[Craclyn]

If you lost track of the father in the USA, have you checked Canada for him too?

[Gen List Lass]

One sometimes comes across a marriage in parish registers when a wife of a transported man wishes to re-marry where the vicar note the husband has been transported. This shows the clergy re-married women in knowledge of a former husband being alive.

Guy, that's interesting, I've never come across that before

Gen in NBL UK