RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: keith michael on Thursday 24 March 16 16:13 GMT (UK)
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HI All
Just a general question.
I`ve got a marriage certificate from 1936 where the father of the Groom is listed as being deceased but I no he never died until 1946 I have never seen this before has anyone else ever had this.
Keith
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Yes, I've come across this before. In the case I recall, the chap getting married left the family home a few years earlier and joined the army. This happened shortly before his widowed father remarried. It is always possible he was not happy about someone taking his mum's place, so fell out with his dad, but who knows.
There could be numerous other reasons for such an occurrence, eg groom brought up not knowing father so assumed he was dead, etc.
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Thanks for the reply it`s been driving me mad! I`ve got his Birth, Marriage and death certs and his parents Probate records and all the dates are correct. But still doubted it because of the whole father deceased thing glad to hear it does happen!
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The father's details (name, occupation and whether deceased) are entirely dependant on the information given to the registrar by the parties getting married. They are not checked or verified in any way.
You can only speculate on why he was shown as deceased (anything from a mistake by the registrar, an assumption or belief by the groom, or deliberate misinformation).
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HI All
Just a general question.
I`ve got a marriage certificate from 1936 where the father of the Groom is listed as being deceased but I no he never died until 1946 I have never seen this before has anyone else ever had this.
Keith
I have one where the bride lists both of her parents as deceased although they didn't cooperate with her for another 25 years.
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Yep - my gran married in the early 1930s and gave her father as deceased.
In fact he had left the family when she was a toddler and her mum had found a new man; my gran was brought up with the surname of the new man but admitted her real/birth surname on her wedding cert.
In fact her birth father had moved back to the town and was running a business only a mile and a half from where she lived before marriage. I find it difficult to believe that she was unaware of this. Her birth father didn't die until the late 1940s.
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HI All
Just a general question.
I`ve got a marriage certificate from 1936 where the father of the Groom is listed as being deceased but I no he never died until 1946 I have never seen this before has anyone else ever had this.
Keith
my grt gran got my nan to lie, she said that her father was geoge smith when it was gorge steel the smith bit was janets father alexander, the funny thing was there was a george smith within the family cousin or something who had a daughter called janet. she bigamously married in 1932 to sidney beauchamp tongs. whilst still married to george steel. he was just as bad he moved to cumbria and eventually remarried he died in 1946.never making contact wither either of his daughters.
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I have come across it before, the bride genuinely belived her Dad to be deceased at the time. The bride was born in 1929 and her sister in 1931. Their mum left the dad for another man in 1933 and their Dad was in contact for another 2 years. The girls then never heard from their Dad again and were told by their mum that he had died. The wedding was in 1947 and she gave her dad's name and said she was deceased. When her mum died in 1986 a lot of letters were found from the dad, turns out the mum had been hiding them from the girls so he had died later than they though. Turns out he didn't die until 1977, he could have met all his grandchildren and half of his grt grandchildren. So sad.
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I have as well. With one of my ancestors the father was given as deceased on the older daughter's marriage certificate, but on the younger one who married later as a commercial traveller. It seems he may have really died sometime before the 1901 census when his wife is with her son-in-law and daughter listed as a widow. The father never appears with the family on any of the census returns after his marriage to their mother.
But it looks as if this gent was a bigamist with another family.......
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The father's details (name, occupation and whether deceased) are entirely dependant on the information given to the registrar by the parties getting married. They are not checked or verified in any way.
You can only speculate on why he was shown as deceased (anything from a mistake by the registrar, an assumption or belief by the groom, or deliberate misinformation).
If we are dependent on unverified information given at the time, by our ancestors, are any of the certificates we have telling the truth at all. It certainly makes you think. Our family trees are compiled completely on trust.
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You can only speculate on why he was shown as deceased (anything from a mistake by the registrar, an assumption or belief by the groom, or deliberate misinformation).
Very true!
I've found it twice in my family - in one case, I believe the parents had separated so maybe the groom believed his father was dead (in fact he died several years later). In the other case I have no idea why.
It's possible that the registrar put "deceased" next to the wrong father...
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I've been mulling this over. I don't remember being asked for proof that my Dad is deceased when I married. He is, do have the death cert.
Certificates are the best evidence we have and I think most of the time they are reasonably accurate. So far all but the marriage I mentioned earlier a deceased father really was deceased. We just have to keep an open mind for these little blips.
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Don't have the marriage certificates, but in the 1880s two of the siblings of my dad's mother were married and said to be 'daughter of the late Mr Charles Joseph Denys'. But I have CJ Denys' death certificate and he didn't die until 1894!
We had heard rumours of a divorce but this is unlikely as it was hard to get divorced without a lot o influence/money, in the 1800s.
Dawn M
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Don't have the marriage certificates, but in the 1880s two of the siblings of my dad's mother were married and said to be 'daughter of the late Mr Charles Joseph Denys'. But I have CJ Denys' death certificate and he didn't die until 1894!
We had heard rumours of a divorce but this is unlikely as it was hard to get divorced without a lot o influence/money, in the 1800s.
Dawn M
Maybe he deserted the family but they never actually divorced. His daughters may have believed their father was dead when they married (a tale their mother spun them?) or they just liked to tell people he was.
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Who knows, Claire?
Among other things that have come to light, and the fact that none of us have ever been able to verify their claim that they were married in 1850 in New York, we are beginning to suspect that maybe they weren't married in the first place!
Both parties entered a second marriage after my GM was born, but the second marriage of CJD was either not known or not recognised, as it's not mentioned on his death certificate.
And he's the only person of that name that I have been able to discover in Australia in that period.
??? ??? ???
He's from France, and first wife was Swiss, second wife French. At least I have that (second) marriage certificate! ::)
Dawn M
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My Fathers older sister said my Grandfather was dead on her marriage certificate. I suspect she had fallen out with the family at the time.
Barb
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I have the opposite problem; an ancestor of mine names his father on his marriage certificate and also gave his occupation but I have the death certificate for the father four years previous to the marriage. His wife is also recorded as a widow on the census three years before her son's marriage. Surely father should have been recorded as deceased.
Thornwood
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I have the opposite problem; an ancestor of mine names his father on his marriage certificate and also gave his occupation but I have the death certificate for the father four years previous to the marriage. His wife is also recorded as a widow on the census three years before her son's marriage. Surely father should have been recorded as deceased.
Thornwood
As said earlier, the information recorded can only be as good as the information provided (and in many cases open to interpretation afterwards ::) )
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I have the opposite problem; an ancestor of mine names his father on his marriage certificate and also gave his occupation but I have the death certificate for the father four years previous to the marriage. His wife is also recorded as a widow on the census three years before her son's marriage. Surely father should have been recorded as deceased.
Thornwood
As said earlier, the information recorded can only be as good as the information provided (and in many cases open to interpretation afterwards ::) )
Also even if information is given accurately you have to rely on the registrar recording it correctly. In the days of hight illiteracy levels and automatic respect for authority it was less likely that people would have the chance to correct any errors by the registrar.
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I have the opposite problem; an ancestor of mine names his father on his marriage certificate and also gave his occupation but I have the death certificate for the father four years previous to the marriage.
Thornwood
In my experience this is quite common, especially in Ireland, I've quite a few certs like this.
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I have the opposite problem; an ancestor of mine names his father on his marriage certificate and also gave his occupation but I have the death certificate for the father four years previous to the marriage. His wife is also recorded as a widow on the census three years before her son's marriage. Surely father should have been recorded as deceased.
Thornwood
If the registrar (or vicar) remembered to ask the right question ......
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I have the opposite problem; an ancestor of mine names his father on his marriage certificate and also gave his occupation but I have the death certificate for the father four years previous to the marriage. His wife is also recorded as a widow on the census three years before her son's marriage. Surely father should have been recorded as deceased.
Thornwood
If the registrar (or vicar) remembered to ask the right question ......
Good point Antony. When I got married I was asked my dad's name and occupation (former if retired) but not if he was still living. It was me who brought it up.
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The registrar has to ask the questions...
My sister who is a registrar preformed my marriage ceremony, and when it came to filling out the register, she explained that even though she knew all my details She still had to by law verbally ask me the questions and I had to verbally respond
When you consider any of the registrations, be it birth, marriage or death, the information given can be considered as here say...
It's assumed if a women is married, when she or the husband registers the birth of a child, that the father is the husband.... How many times has that been wrong?
Marriages are the same, how many people lied about their ages so they didn't have to gain parental permission to marry?
Deaths, are slightly different as a doctor will confirm the individual has actually died, just the rest of the information concerning full name and age can be slightly out due to what knowledge the informant has of the individual.
So how accurate our trees are, isn't just dependent on our skills as researchers, but if or how many fibs our ancestors told in there time
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Deaths, are slightly different as a doctor will confirm the individual has actually died, just the rest of the information concerning full name and age can be slightly out due to what knowledge the informant has of the individual.
This wasn't always the case - A medical certificate was not always required and the further back you go through the 19th century and beyond the less chance of having that medical certification or pronouncement.
(for example, in Scotland a Doctors certificate only became compulsory around 1910 although Friendly Societies and Insurance companies had required them for a good while before that and people especially where access was easier tended to call the Doctor in voluntarily)
So how accurate our trees are, isn't just dependent on our skills as researchers, but if or how many fibs our ancestors told in there time
Catching them out is part of the fun ::)
The bottom line though is that even if it is written/typed on an official piece of paper it does not necessarily make it true