Keeping it in the Family

[BourneGooner]

Hi All

Just a little oddity I thought I'd share, I have a William Sullivan b.1861 married Susan Poole in 1895, she died 1897 so William married her sister Jane Poole in 1904, Jane then died soon after so William then went and married the third sister Mary Ann Poole in 1916....he either liked the family, they looked similar or he liked his in laws :-)
I've now got an Elizabeth Rowlett who married Walter Needham he died 1917 in the war so Elizabeth then went and married Walters brother Joseph....

I now keeping it in the family is one thing but... ;-)

Just struck me odd I can come across one man who married three sisters and now a woman who married two brothers. Makes for a complicated bit of research.

Still the research goes on

BourneGoone

[Mabel Bagshawe]

Interesting validity as well in some cases. marrying your deceased wife's sister wasn't legalised until 1907 and your deceased brother's widow in 1921

[Gillg]

One if my great-great aunts married a London stonemason who emigrated to the US around 1870.  She soon followed him after the birth of their first child and they lived on the Kansas prairies for several years, producing 3 more children, but she died in 1877 after the birth of the last child.  Her husband must have sent word speedily to her family in England, because her younger sister arrived in Kansas within a few months and married the widower in 1878.  They went on to have 5 children together and were later joined by her mother and brother. 

Maybe the laws in the US about marrying your deceased wife's sister were different at that time? 

[coombs]

I have one or two who wed their deceased spouses sister/brother.

I also have 3 brothers who wed 3 sisters.

[Ruskie]

I have one who married her husband's younger brother, but my favourite, is the one who married her her step son (son of her husband and his first wife). The step son was only three years younger than she was. 

[BourneGooner]

Interesting point on the law, William Sullivan married the Poole sisters in America so like Gillg says the US must have had different laws and as for Elizabeth Rowlett marrying her deceased husbands brother this marriage took place in 1922 so would just have been legal :-)

BourneGooner

[Galium]

One of my ancestors, a bishop (not in the Anglican Church, which may have made a difference) from Ohio married two sisters in the 1860s, the younger one first, and when she died the older one went out to where he was doing mission work in the West Indies to look after the children. We don't know whether the marriage was intended before she went there, but it seems likely.

[tillypeg]

In my tree is a woman who, in the early 1900s, went to live with and care for her grandmother and step-grandfather.  The grandmother died in 1903 and a year later the widower married his step-granddaughter.  Age gap of 34 years.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Not my family, but I know of one where 2 brothers and a sister married 2 sisters and a brother of another family.