Grandfather jailed for bigamy - missing link

[avm228]

It can easily be googled.  I'm off duty 

[ljuk]

It can easily be googled.  I'm off duty 

OK. I'll google it since you can't be bothered to explain.

[ljuk]

It can easily be googled.  I'm off duty 

OK. I'll google it since you can't be bothered to explain.

I expect you just ripped it from Google anyway ...

Off duty lawyers ...

Huh ...

[hasta]

Was looking at this thread earlier today and one thing occurred to me.

So, just going back to basics - I am wondering when the cert that M3D1C_Dan has (or it seems that his parents have)  for the (possible) second marriage to Nora Reddington was actually issued ?

Officially (but not always in practice !) if a bigamous marriage has been detected, (and especially after a conviction) the GRO should be informed and then be unable to issue a further copy, since that marriage was null and void in the first place.
So am wondering if that cert was issued before or after the conviction  ?

[Dundee]

I was wondering the same thing, but as Dan needed advice on how to purchase a marriage cert. earlier in the thread I just assumed that he has the original marriage cert.

Off topic, but will the GRO just transcribe the details from the cert for you if they cannot issue an official copy?

I was also curious about why GRM appears in the gaol records under his first married name.  Would he not have been convicted under the second name as that was the one he was using when he committed the offence?  Perhaps they had evidence that the second name was the alias.  I don't know how hard the authorities would have tried to establish his real identity in the 1940s.

I can't believe how much it costs to get a copy of a decree absolute - £65 if you don't know the case number or the court   

Debra 

[ljuk]

"(nothing to do with a statute of limitations, though)"

Why do you say so?

I can bore you for hours on English law but don't think that's going to be helpful in this quest.

A statute of limitations prescribes an end date at which proceedings can be issued, after the relevant matters have taken place.  It doesn't exist in English criminal law.  If you've committed an offence, you can be prosecuted at any date thereafter. It does, however, exist in English civil law - see the Limitation Act 1980.

The statutory defence to bigamy doesn't tell the Crown that it can't prosecute once a certain time has elapsed after the offence - rather, it prescribes and limits the circumstances in which an offence will have been committed. Quite different things.

Back to the topic...

"... for this reason English law developed a statutory defence to a criminal charge of bigamy based on lapse of time (7 years of continual absence without knowledge that the person was living in that time)".

You posted that yourself on another thread here recently ...

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=641019.msg4880655#msg4880655

[Milliepede]

Changing tack (horse pun not intentional) would it be possible to search for brother Frederick who served with him and was shot and killed in France?   
But then what surname would he be under

Any history of the regiment that might give a clue or commemorate members that were killed?

Only other thing I can think of at the moment is to look for his brother and sister together as children (presuming born pre 1911) and see if there is another brother who could be Gordon.  Needle in a haystack but hey. 

[Tiki1962]

My thoughts - He used Markerson and Markinson across the timeline. Is it possible there is another spelling? Or can you search Mark**son to see if there was another spelling?
Tiki

[dawnsh]

You can do a birth search on freebmd with the surname MARK*SON where the search engine will look for any letters inbetween the K and S. Markerson & Markinson are particularly rare names and Markinson tends to be localised to the Leeds area.

you can do a 1911 census sibling search with Ancestry, by entering a first name ie Fred* (because we don't know if Gordon is his real name) and leaving the surname at the top of the form blank and entering 2 siblings as Rose* and Gordon but that supposes they were all born before 1911. Ancestry will search for Fred, Fredrick, Frederick, Freddy etc