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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: NixonHoltClan on Wednesday 07 September 11 15:37 BST (UK)

Title: Married 20 years later?
Post by: NixonHoltClan on Wednesday 07 September 11 15:37 BST (UK)
I've found a marriage record which I am positive is the right one. However, according to this, they would have married 20 years AFTER their first child was born. This was in the early 90s (marriage 1932, first child 1912). Second child was born 1920.

Is this likely to be the right one?? I presumed that marriage came before kids, back then.

The only other than I can think of is there has been an error on the marriage record, but the original record on ancestry.co.uk is typed and not hand-written, so I can't see it for myself. I don't want to pay for a copy of the marriage certificate as I am doing the tree for somebody else (and they won't want pay for it, I know)
Title: Re: Married 20 years later?
Post by: cati on Wednesday 07 September 11 15:46 BST (UK)
Well, without the certificates there's no way of telling: but my greatgreat grandfather was born 13 years before his parents were married, so you're not alone!

Cati
Title: Re: Married 20 years later?
Post by: annaS on Wednesday 07 September 11 15:46 BST (UK)
Not common but definitely not uncommon either. I have more than one in my trees.

Anna
Title: Re: Married 20 years later?
Post by: SWar on Wednesday 07 September 11 16:51 BST (UK)

I had this problem when researching OH's grandparents.  They married the same year as their eldest son.  Checking back, I found grandmother was already married and they actually married the same year that her first husband died.

Sue
Title: Re: Married 20 years later?
Post by: carol8353 on Wednesday 07 September 11 18:13 BST (UK)
My great grandparents married 21 years after the birth of their first(of ten) children  :o

My gran was 14 when her parents married.So I imagine she and her siblings knew when they did,or perhaps they just went off and did it in secret.They married at Fulham registry office in 1914.

Carol
Title: Re: Married 20 years later?
Post by: Johnoz on Thursday 08 September 11 01:47 BST (UK)
I can claim a 17 year gap between children and marriage with one set of 2nd great grandparents. They were married in 1851, 2 years before his death in 1853. His death certificate records that he died from pythisis [TB] which he had for 2 years. One likes to presume that the news of his illness gave the decision to marry before it was too late.
John Gourlay
Title: Re: Married 20 years later?
Post by: Deb D on Thursday 08 September 11 02:49 BST (UK)
Don't panic ... my gt grandmother married her second husband twice; - once in 1911, and then again in 1965.  We're not sure whether she thought the original "license" had "expired"!  ;D
Title: Re: Married 20 years later?
Post by: Guy Etchells on Thursday 08 September 11 06:47 BST (UK)
I would suggest checking for an earlier marriage.

My grandparents had four children between 1912 and 1922 but did not marry until 1934. My grandmother simply took his surname as hers.
The reason for this I discovered from the 1911 census.
My grandfather had married earlier in 1896.

For whatever reason they did not divorce, whether due to cost, or perhaps she refused to divorce him I don't know, but he waited until after her death in 1933  to re-marry.

I must admit that as he had been the family historian, I had not even questioned the idea that he had not married my grandmother. It was not until I was tidying up some loose ends after the release of the 1911 census I decided to purchase their marriage certificate that I discovered the truth.
Cheers
Guy
Title: Re: Married 20 years later?
Post by: cathaldus on Thursday 08 September 11 18:20 BST (UK)
My paternal grandparents had their first child in 1905 and went on to have all their children (including my own Dad) until 1927.   They actually got married in 1921 (and in Church!!)

Bill ;D
Title: Re: Married 20 years later?
Post by: mona lisa on Tuesday 13 September 11 19:20 BST (UK)
Until recent times ca 1960's ? if a spouse was in a Mental Institution, a divorce was out of the question, as it was considered to be not the person's fault. I know of a marriage; that was 30 years after the fact. The spouse died and the husband was free to marry. The couple was well up in their 70's then.
Title: Re: Married 20 years later?
Post by: pinefamily on Wednesday 14 September 11 10:59 BST (UK)
My grandmother's parents did not marry until 1915; 35 years after my grandmother was born. I have since discovered that my great-grandmother's first husband ( who had deserted her) did not die until then. My great-grandparents had three daughters in the 1880's, then 3 more in the 1890's. I can't figure it out!

Darren