James A Meddings

[majm]

Something is still wrong....

What was the surname of Husband No. 2 ..... was it also MEDDINGS .... as here is a possible NZ marriage but with the surname MEDDINGS.   Alas, it was not at the end of 1917, as it was 3 October 1917, and likely there would be an ITM (Intention to Marry) record noting their status/es and how long each were resident prior to that marriage.

Marriage registration at NZ BDM online
Stewart Easton MEDDINGS and Vernon George COLLINS was 3 October 1917.   What does the NZ BDM Printout show for that marriage?
https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/search/

Cheers,  JM

[wivenhoe]

Can you identify the "second" and "third" marriages that you have found please?

[majm]

I can see a Stewart E MORGAN marriage to Claude MILNE, registered 2nd quarter 1917,(April, May June) registration at Warminster, Wiltshire.  5a/273

So if this is the same 'bride' each time, then she could not have left for NZ until after that marriage. 

How would the AIF chap have travelled from Weymouth 28 Oct 1916 to marry at Gateshead and be back at Woolwich without any apparent furlough being noted on his AIF papers?   Perhaps I have missed the furlough?

Cheers,  JM

[~MERLIN~]

Stuart married again in 1917........... The man she married the second time became a serial bigamist ....she herself married a third time at the end of 1917 in New Zealand

Can you identify these two marriages please...when, where and who.

Possible marriages in the UK:

1. http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/districts.pl?r=136318547:9835&d=bmd_1412239200

2. http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/districts.pl?r=137673023:0786&d=bmd_1412239200

[~MERLIN~]

Can you identify the "second" and "third" marriages that you have found please?

Possible marriages in the UK:

1. http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/districts.pl?r=136318547:9835&d=bmd_1412239200

2. http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/districts.pl?r=137673023:0786&d=bmd_1412239200

[Millmoor]

Hi

Stuart Easton Morgan's parents would appear to have been James Llewellyn Morgan and Elizabeth Carmichael. Suggest you find the 1911 census for James Morgan in Gateshead and look at address and compare with the address given for Mrs J A Meddings on James Meddings service record.

There is a birth for Stuart Easton Morgan in West Calder, Midlothian, Scotland in 1893. You can download the birth cert(credits only site) which will confirm names of parents. Do you have the names of her parents from NZ records? If so this would help to confirm it is the same person.

http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

William

[wivenhoe]

National Probate Calendar has -

death 3 Aug 1935 James Llewellyn MORGAN, 8 Mafeking St,  widow Elizabeth Steele MORGAN

death 16 Jun 1946 Elizabeth Steele MORGAN, 8 Mafeking St.

same address on WW1 record.

[wivenhoe]

BDM NZ death
1979 / 39183 COLLINS Molly Stuart Easton         3 April 1896

[DebNZ]

Wow - got up this morning and such a lot to reply to!

Firstly - Molly Stuart Easton Collins is nothing to do with this family.

Yes, the sequence of Marriages is Meddings, Milne, Collins.  Collins is my family and family story was that she came home "ön the boat"with Vernon George Collins having had a marriage with an ölder man"named Meddings who had died before she met Vernon.  This would be why she married Vernon under the name Meddings I guess. That was the story as it lay until last weekend when someone contacted me via my website to tell me that her uncle Claude Milne had also married Stuart in England.

Looking at Meddings war records you can see he was not exactly a model soldier and I don't find it odd that he was married during all the things that took place in 1916.  I do find it odd that somehow Stuart married Claude Milne while she was still married to him though and THEN that she sailed off to NZ and married Vernon.

All the details that you wonderful people have found are the correct person/people.  I know Stuart's background well and had taken at face value the family tale of being swept up by a New Zealand soldier as she grieved the death of her elderly husband and taken back to New Zealand to be his bride.

The reason that I posted on the Durham board originally was because I didn't know that Meddings was Australian until last Wednesday (again going along with the family story.....)

The reason that I don't have all three marriage certificates is because (a) I only found out about this anomaly on Sunday (b) I only found the marriage record to Milne on Monday and (c) she is not my direct ancestor being the wife of my 2x gt uncle's grandson.

It's a great story and I just wanted to get my facts straight.  So many thanks for your help which is greatly appreciated especially the newspaper report of James'death.

DebNZ