Father Deceased on marriage cert but still alive?

[keith michael]

HI All
Just a general question.
I`ve got a marriage certificate from 1936 where the father of the Groom is listed as being deceased but I no he never died until 1946 I have never seen this before has anyone else ever had this.
Keith

[scotmum]

Yes, I've come across this before. In the case I recall, the chap getting married left the family home a few years earlier and joined the army. This happened shortly before his widowed father remarried. It is always possible he was not happy about someone taking his mum's place, so fell out with his dad, but who knows.

There could be numerous other reasons for such an occurrence, eg groom brought up not knowing father so assumed he was dead, etc.

[keith michael]

Thanks for the reply it`s been driving me mad! I`ve got his Birth, Marriage and death certs and his parents Probate records and all the dates are correct. But still doubted it because of the whole father deceased thing glad to hear it does happen!

[AntonyMMM]

The father's details (name, occupation and whether deceased) are entirely dependant on the information given to the registrar by the parties getting married. They are not checked or verified in any way.

You can only speculate on why he was shown as deceased (anything from a mistake by the registrar, an assumption or belief by the groom,  or deliberate misinformation).

[RJ_Paton]

HI All
Just a general question.
I`ve got a marriage certificate from 1936 where the father of the Groom is listed as being deceased but I no he never died until 1946 I have never seen this before has anyone else ever had this.
Keith

I have one where the bride lists both of her parents as deceased although they didn't cooperate with her for another 25 years.

[Annie65115]

Yep - my gran married in the early 1930s and gave her father as deceased.

In fact he had left the family when she was a toddler and her mum had found a new man; my gran was brought up with the surname of the new man but admitted her real/birth surname on her wedding cert.

In fact her birth father had moved back to the town and was running a business only a mile and a half from where she lived before marriage. I find it difficult to believe that she was unaware of this. Her birth father didn't die until the late 1940s.

[marcie dean]

HI All
Just a general question.
I`ve got a marriage certificate from 1936 where the father of the Groom is listed as being deceased but I no he never died until 1946 I have never seen this before has anyone else ever had this.
Keith

my grt gran got my nan to lie, she said that her father was geoge smith when it was gorge steel the smith bit was janets father alexander, the funny thing was there was a george smith within the family cousin or something who had a daughter called janet. she bigamously married in 1932 to sidney beauchamp tongs. whilst still married to george steel. he was just as bad he moved to cumbria and eventually remarried he died in 1946.never making contact wither either of his daughters.

[pharmaT]

I have come across it before, the bride genuinely belived her Dad to be deceased at the time.  The bride was born in 1929 and her sister in 1931.  Their mum left the dad for another man in 1933 and their Dad was in contact for another 2 years.  The girls then never heard from their Dad again and were told by their mum that he had died.  The wedding was in 1947 and she gave her dad's name and said she was deceased.  When her mum died in 1986 a lot of letters were found from the dad, turns out the mum had been hiding them from the girls so he had died later than they though.  Turns out he didn't die until 1977, he could have met all his grandchildren and half of his grt grandchildren.  So sad.

[3sillydogs]

I have as well.  With one of my ancestors the father was given as deceased on the older daughter's marriage certificate, but on the younger one who married later as a  commercial traveller.  It seems he may have really died sometime before the 1901 census when his wife is with her son-in-law and daughter listed as a widow.  The father never appears with the family on any of the census returns after his marriage to their mother.

But it looks as if this gent was a bigamist with another family.......