Marrying your dead wife's sister

[hdw]

I don't know about the twin thing, but certainly two brothers marrying two sisters was not unknown in my neck of the woods and has happened in my own family.

Harry

[Forfarian]

Indeed. I even hav a case of three siblings marrying three siblings. Though as far as I know none of the later generations intermarried.

[hdw]

Indeed. I even hav a case of three siblings marrying three siblings. Though as far as I know none of the later generations intermarried.

In the fishing villages where the man might be away from home for days at a time, and there were nets to be mended and lines to be baited, a man literally couldn't function without a woman at home, especially if there were young children to look after. So when a wife and mother died her husband might get married again with what seems to us like indecent haste, but it was a case of needs must. And that was when a man might marry his cousin or his late wife's sister, because let's face it he hadn't got the time or the opportunity to go courting a stranger (unless he clicked with a woman in another port, of course). Sentimentality and romance didn't come into it.

Harry

[BumbleB]

Just a little more confusion, and not quite the same problem.  Widower of sister marries widow of brother.

So Joseph Richard marries Catherine Lily and Eliza marries Alfred.  Joseph Richard and Eliza die, so Catherine Lily marries Alfred.  It took me a while to work it out!

AND - I've just looked at the marriage record of Alfred and Eliza - AND Joseph Richard is a witness    Isn't family history wonderful 

[hdw]

In my home village two sisters called Keay married David Moncrieff and John Gardner respectively. David Moncrieff died, leaving Kate Keay a widow, and Kate's sister who was married to John Gardner died, so Kate Keay married her widowed brother-in-law John Gardner.

Marrying a widower could be a chancy business. In 1807 a widower in Pittenweem called John Meldrum who had either six or seven children married Christian Keay of Cellardyke. She was pregnant at the time, to judge from when their son John Meldrum junior was born. Not long after they were married, John Meldrum senior died, and Christian seems to have panicked at the thought of becoming a single mother with a brood of strange kids to bring up, because she skedaddled back home to Cellardyke, where her son by John was born later that year. I've seen the entry in the Pittenweem kirk-session records where the session clerk records having written to John Meldrum's eldest daughter, who is working away from home, saying that if she consents to come home and look after her younger siblings, the kirk-session will pay her a small weekly wage.

Christian Keay never married again, and in the 1841 census she is lodging with her brother David Keay in Cellardyke - the man who was married to two different wives called Janet Brown.

Harry

[carolineasb]

I have 2 sisters, Agnes and Jeanie Laurie, marrying twin brothers, James and Thomas Mulgrew.  The girls' brother, James, married another woman, Jeanie, who went on to marry yet another Mulgrew brother, John, when her first husband died!

When Thomas Mulgrew died, Jeanie, went on to remarry and, spookily, married a chap with the same name as my husband!

[anne_p]

I have many instances in my family tree where a man/woman marries the sister/brother of the deceased spouse.

I also have a family where a widowed father and two of his daughters ( from his 1st marriage)... all married siblings!
The relationships are mind boggling..

Stepmother or sister in law?
Sons in law or brothers in law?
Step- mother in law or sister ?

Worse still... all 3 couples had children from the marriages!

[hdw]

I have 2 sisters, Agnes and Jeanie Laurie, marrying twin brothers, James and Thomas Mulgrew.  The girls' brother, James, married another woman, Jeanie, who went on to marry yet another Mulgrew brother, John, when her first husband died!

When Thomas Mulgrew died, Jeanie, went on to remarry and, spookily, married a chap with the same name as my husband!

I can imagine a scenario where (forgive me!) a child of one of these marriages leaves some of his/her DNA at a murder scene, and a whole bunch of their cousins would then be in the frame. There would be a lot of shared Y DNA and also mtDNA.

Harry

[DavidG02]

I don't know about the twin thing, but certainly two brothers marrying two sisters was not unknown in my neck of the woods and has happened in my own family.

Harry

My maternal grandparents (all passed) were Brother/Brother marrying Sister/Sister  ie Munn/Simpson Rennie married Thelma and then Hillary married Laurel

And I have found 3 more lots going further back