St. John's Hackney

[wonkiewidge]

Hello,

Could someone please help me with this puzzle?

I have 3 separate marriages that took place at St. John's Hackney. None of the parties to these 3 marriages had any connection with Hackney, so I am left wondering why they would choose to travel there to get married.

The first couple were married in 1824 the groom was an excise officer and their first child was born a year later in Bethnal green.

The 2nd couple were also from Bethnal green. Groom was a silk weaver. Again 1824.

3rd couple was the Silk weaver's (above) 2nd marriage in 1834.

Was there some connection between Bethnal Green + St. John's? Was it a prestigious church?

I have phoned up Hackney archives, but they cannot shed any light on it either.

Linda 

[Sylviaann]

Bethnal Green and Hackney are next to one another so it could have been the nearest church at the time.  Perhaps the wives lived near the church.

There were not many churches around at that time.   St Matthews was the only church in  Bethnal Green before 1842.

People did move around a lot.

Trying to find the map of Parishes but can't find it at the moment.

Sylviaann

[wonkiewidge]

Hello Sylviaann,

I knew that they were reasonably close, but I just wonder why they chose St John's to be married in, when all other family events were held at st Matthews.

Very curious.

Linda

[smudwhisk]

I've just found the same thing, but this time it involves six marriages of siblings at Hackney St John when all the family were from Mile End and had been baptised at Stepney St Dunstan & All Angels!  They then lived in either Mile End or Bromley St Leonard following their marriages.  Not sure why ... mind you didn't help that the direct line put her father's name down incorrectly as John when it was in fact James.  This has confused for absolutely years.  Its only be a matter of elimination and some rather nice signatures on various marriage entries, that we've worked out she had done this.  Luckily father was a shoemaker as opposed to a labourer and there were few Johnson shoemakers in London at the time. 

Nicola

[wonkiewidge]

Hello Nicola,

There's got to be something in this. What we need is a local historian. Perhaps the incumbent vicar will know.

Re: John/James, I have a similar problem with my great grandfather. I cannot find any registration for his birth or any census records for him until he was 20. I suspect he gave a false name. I cannot find the father he gives on his wedding certificate either. Unfortunately I do not know of any siblings, so I cannot double check any details.
........... Any ideas super sleuth? 

Linda

[Valda]

Hi

By tradition you married in the woman's parish - often servants so often not at home with their parents. Having banns called for three weeks was an expensive business and for ordinary working people was something that had to be saved up for. To avoid any extra costs one of the couple usually moved to the other's parish for the three weeks necessary residency before the marriage. That way the banns would only have to be called in one church halving the cost.

People moved often in London depending on their circumstances and whether they could pay the weekly rent. They would down or upsize depending on their circumstances and where the work was. This meant they were regularly moving across adjacent (and further apart) London parishes.

Before civil registration 1st July 1837 other than Quakers it was illegal for non-conformists to marry in their own churches. They had to marry in an Anglican church. They in particular chose to marry in churches where they were not known to avoid the difficulties they might encounter with their local Anglican church.

Excise officers by the very nature of their jobs may often have had to move around the country.


Regards

Valda

[wonkiewidge]

Hi Valda, Thanks for that.

The silk weaver was baptized in a non conformist church, so your theory may be right. I haven't found any connection with the 2 women and Hackney, although if they went into service that may indeed be what happened.

I suppose at the end of the day no one can ever really know what happened with our ancestors. When you get this far back, it just becomes educated guess work.

Cheers!

Linda

[smudwhisk]

I don't disagree with the points Valda has made as they do usually apply.  However in the case of my 6 siblings, neither the groom nor bride (and they were 4 sisters and 2 brothers) had any known connection with Hackney St John so I am starting to suspect perhaps it was easy and cheaper to get banns called as "of this parish" at that church at that time ... who knows!  None of the 6 and their spouces lived in Hackney at any time nor had any children baptised there and Mile End is further away than Bethnal Green from Hackney anyway.  Londoners did move around a lot but this family had no other known connection with Hackney apart from those marriages.

Linda - have you tried following through the witnesses on the marriage?  Sometimes they end up being married siblings ... this started me off with the Johnsons in Mile End.  Was the father anything other than a labourer?  If you have ancestry access try looking for anyone with the same surname with the father's profession, even if the first name is different?  The original witnesses signatures can sometimes be very useful in confirming identities when the name is common.

Unfortunatley it can take time.  We'd been looking for about 8 years and been through all the surrounding parishes at the LMA.  Occasionally you get lucky and find a clue ... mine was re-looking at the 1841 census having found no obvious baptism on ancestry (which was double checking what we'd done manually before) and then finding a Catherine Johnson born c.1823 with a father who was a cordwainer ... it just wasn't a John ... then noticed 4 other marriages at Hackney of Johnsons whose father was a cordwainer ... took it from there and can now say she's definately mine since she was the witness on one of her sister's second marriages ... the same sister who witnessed Catherine's own marriage 2 years earlier under her first married name!!  It did help that they were almost all literate except for one sister.

Good luck with the hunt.

Nicola

[wonkiewidge]

Hi Nicola,

My great grandfather was George England. He was a tiler, (from the census records he was a tesellated tile fixer, and a road or roof tiler (the writing is not too clear). His father was given as John England also a tiler. George's place of birth was Pancras c. 1861.
I have looked at his marriage certificate, but unfortunately the two witness' are related to the bride.

A while ago I did some digging around on the census records (when they came online) for England families with a tiling connection and found a possible connection to a family (William & Martha England). They were in Pancras in 1841 but moved to Islington by 1851 although they were originally from Bristol. They did have a son John, but from 1851, I cannot find him. Although William was a plasterer, his sons went into the tiling (mosaic) profession.
So far I have not been able to connect my George into this family (he would have been William & Martha's grandson if connected).

I have been looking for 10 years now. The only thing I can think of next, is to see if there are any baptisms that fit when they come online on Ancestry, as I haven't been able to find him in the civil registration indexes, or on the IGI.

I think I'll have to get a subscription.

Cheers,

Linda