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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: BourneGooner on Friday 23 April 21 19:51 BST (UK)
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Hi All
Just a little oddity I thought I'd share, I have a William Sullivan b.1861 married Susan Poole in 1895, she died 1897 so William married her sister Jane Poole in 1904, Jane then died soon after so William then went and married the third sister Mary Ann Poole in 1916....he either liked the family, they looked similar or he liked his in laws :-)
I've now got an Elizabeth Rowlett who married Walter Needham he died 1917 in the war so Elizabeth then went and married Walters brother Joseph....
I now keeping it in the family is one thing but... ;-)
Just struck me odd I can come across one man who married three sisters and now a woman who married two brothers. Makes for a complicated bit of research.
Still the research goes on
BourneGoone
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Interesting validity as well in some cases. marrying your deceased wife's sister wasn't legalised until 1907 and your deceased brother's widow in 1921
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One if my great-great aunts married a London stonemason who emigrated to the US around 1870. She soon followed him after the birth of their first child and they lived on the Kansas prairies for several years, producing 3 more children, but she died in 1877 after the birth of the last child. Her husband must have sent word speedily to her family in England, because her younger sister arrived in Kansas within a few months and married the widower in 1878. They went on to have 5 children together and were later joined by her mother and brother.
Maybe the laws in the US about marrying your deceased wife's sister were different at that time?
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I have one or two who wed their deceased spouses sister/brother.
I also have 3 brothers who wed 3 sisters.
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I have one who married her husband's younger brother, but my favourite, is the one who married her her step son (son of her husband and his first wife). The step son was only three years younger than she was. :P
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Interesting point on the law, William Sullivan married the Poole sisters in America so like Gillg says the US must have had different laws and as for Elizabeth Rowlett marrying her deceased husbands brother this marriage took place in 1922 so would just have been legal :-)
BourneGooner
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One of my ancestors, a bishop (not in the Anglican Church, which may have made a difference) from Ohio married two sisters in the 1860s, the younger one first, and when she died the older one went out to where he was doing mission work in the West Indies to look after the children. We don't know whether the marriage was intended before she went there, but it seems likely.
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In my tree is a woman who, in the early 1900s, went to live with and care for her grandmother and step-grandfather. The grandmother died in 1903 and a year later the widower married his step-granddaughter. Age gap of 34 years.
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Not my family, but I know of one where 2 brothers and a sister married 2 sisters and a brother of another family.
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I too have 3 brothers who married 3 sisters. The 1921 census will help me untangle whose children are whose!
I also have a stepmother who married a stepson just before he went off to WWI. She was never married to the father, but did have 5 children with him, and is listed as his wife on the 1911. She had no children with John Jr. When the woman died, the informant, a daughter from the group of 5 listed her as the widow of John Sr. not John Jr.
John Sr also had an earlier marriage that ended in divorce, and 5 children. Also a son John there! A second marriage produced 2, including John Jr. the Second.
What a tangled web...
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I too have 3 brothers who married 3 sisters. The 1921 census will help me untangle whose children are whose!
I also have a stepmother who married a stepson just before he went off to WWI. She was never married to the father, but did have 5 children with him, and is listed as his wife on the 1911. She had no children with John Jr. When the woman died, the informant, a daughter from the group of 5 listed her as the widow of John Sr. not John Jr.
John Sr also had an earlier marriage that ended in divorce, and 5 children. Also a son John there! A second marriage produced 2, including John Jr. the Second.
What a tangled web...
Brothers marrying sisters can help with the tree, however the amount of namesake children two brothers can have, such as if 2 brothers have 2 daughters, they are given the same first name, same for sons, or even if there are 3 or 4 brothers, you have 4 sons all called Thomas Hamilton or Anne Hamilton, a very tangled web.
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I too have 3 brothers who married 3 sisters. The 1921 census will help me untangle whose children are whose!
I also have a stepmother who married a stepson just before he went off to WWI. She was never married to the father, but did have 5 children with him, and is listed as his wife on the 1911. She had no children with John Jr. When the woman died, the informant, a daughter from the group of 5 listed her as the widow of John Sr. not John Jr.
John Sr also had an earlier marriage that ended in divorce, and 5 children. Also a son John there! A second marriage produced 2, including John Jr. the Second.
What a tangled web...
Brothers marrying sisters can help with the tree, however the amount of namesake children two brothers can have, such as if 2 brothers have 2 daughters, they are given the same first name, same for sons, or even if there are 3 or 4 brothers, you have 4 sons all called Thomas Hamilton or Anne Hamilton, a very tangled web.
You are right! I will have to have a look at this family, but the children were born in the early 20th century, when the naming patterns were less rigid.
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Legal or not it happened and often... when people married they 'gave' information and unless it was in their parish where they were known and their family circumstances were known they could lie and tell the church it was their first marriage / give their maiden name and the church didn't verify or know any difference...which is likely why laws were eventually changed