Thomas Dobby

[j.m.firth]

Thanks for your continued help, I'm really stuck! It makes sense that Thomas and Ellen Milward are James' parents. The trouble is, it says quite clearly 'deceased' underneath Thomas's name. Residence at the time of marriage for both Hannah and James is given as Woodside, Horsforth. The witnesses were James Pickard and Maria Pickard, their neighbours. Could a family fall out account for the word 'deceased'? Is this bound to be accurate? They married at the Register Office of .........difficult to read. Is this unusual for the time? or significant?   Jane

[suzard]

The word deceased could have been entered in error - sometimes the word is omitted when the father is actually deceased.
I asked if the word was clear -as it could have said Thomas "senior" or suchlike.

The other possibility is -was hannah's father deceased and the word was put under the "wrong" father.

As I looked through the censs I wondered if james had fallen out with his family -purely because of his occupation. The Boddys seemed to help on the farm - haven't checked all of the children- but in later census some of the children have married and are still "at home" with parents . Maybe james'father disowned him when he took up another profession.

As hannah was a few years older than James -was there something about hannah that the family disapproved of?

Also, as they married in a register office, could a disaggreement have occurred because hannah was of a different faith to the Dobbys?
When I was young it was still frowned upon amongst the older folks if a "chapel" person was walking out with a "church" person. (my grandparents married in a register office for similar reason - in the 1890's -then had their children baptised Cof E but raised them as methodists -and they all married in CofE!!!)


Another factor could be if james wasn't quite 21 -putting deceased would be a way out of gaining parental consent.

maybe james just fell in love and ran away with hannah and didnt want to tell the family

Of course this is all supposition.

But there are no other likely candidates to be James father -no other James born that time and area either.

maybe james was rebellious- he does seem to be an afterthought on the 1851 census-but he could have just been missed out and then entered at the end.

The 1861 census is so precise -in occupation column relationships are given in detail.

Of course it could be nothing more than an error was made in the marriage register

Suz