Many thanks for your replies. I did think that the marriages were of the people I’d identified as brothers, but I didn’t wan’t to ignore the differences between the signatures to fit the signatures to my theory as opposed to supporting it.
One of the problems I had was that brother William simply made a mark when he married in 1815, whereas he signed as witness of the marriages of siblings John and Ann in 1814, but I suppose there could be numerous explanations, including possibly the stress of the situation.
It now seems almost certain that John Hunt who married in 1814 to Sarah married again, in 1824, to Rebecca Roscoe in Bolton (or 1826, can’t recall offhand). He didn’t sign, it seems, and was also described as bachelor. The 1851 Census of Leicester also incorrectly says that John was born in Bolton (there is a baptism of Rebecca Roscho there which fits her), and I can find no burial for John’s wife Sarah. There may be perfectly innocent explanations for these anomalies, but on the face of it, it all looks a bit dodgy.
Dave
