I too have a bigamist in the family - gg grandpa! He went to gaol for three years to contemplate his misdeeds - and get blisters from the hard manual labour on the roads he was sentenced to. But his children had to be put into homes, as the legal wife, my gg grandma, was destitute and had no way of feeding them. She died 5 years later. Silly man did the deed in apparently the same town as his legal wife! Or very close, anyway. 1865 in a goldmining town here in the state of Victoria.. Dawn (Melbourne Australia) -----Original Message----- From: Celia Renshaw [mailto:celia@valinor.force9.co.uk] Sent: Tuesday, 12 April 2005 10:07 AM To: BUCKS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: RE: [BKM] a disappearing WICKS 'Divorce' and 'remarriage' (by the wife at least) without the benefit of official paperwork? I have a similar circumstance in my family. Great-grandpa William DANFORTH married twice and on 2nd marriage said he was a widower. But a new batch of cousins contacted me a while back, descended from 1st wife, and proved to me without a shadow of a doubt that she was still alive when William remarried. She herself was living with another chap. The cousins were as shocked as me by the evidence of bigamy but it seems that with divorce virtually unobtainable for the working folk, this kind of thing was much more common than we might like to imagine. In my family's case I think everyone knew what was going on. But in yours, perhaps John WICKS deserted his wife and she remarried thinking he was dead. I haven't worked out the years involved but perhaps he was gone long enough to be officially counted as dead. Perhaps he was transported? All sorts of possibilities really. Best wishes Celia Renshaw (nee DANFORTH, descended from the 'illegal' 2nd wife!) In Chesterfield UK -----Original Message----- From: gill kelly [mailto:gk011a6271@blueyonder.co.uk] Sent: 12 April 2005 00:32 To: BUCKS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [BKM] a disappearing WICKS Has anyone any ideas?? In 1871 and in 1881 John WICKS lives with his wife and two children William F and Edith Annie at 29 Corunna Rd, Battersea ... in 1871 he is an Engine Driver and in 1881 an engine fitter. Somewhere between 1881 and 1891 he dies and Edith Annie and her mother go into service apparently to Stoneleigh, Weybridge... they evidently move on from there to Gomer Berry's estate, where Edith Annie meets John Thomas YATES..... Story has it that the pair of slipper fronts that were handed down through the family were made by John WICKS when he was in hospital.... also, and maybe unconnected, someone on his side of the family was in the Black Watch regiment and did some service overseas. However complicated this may appear... it is even more so when he apparently turns up in the 1901 census in Lambeth (where William F was born) right age, place of birth and occupation.... a too solid ghost to explain away! His wife is definitely down as a widow in the 1891 census. What could be the explanation? Gill ==== BUCKS Mailing List ==== BGS Website: http://www.bucksgs.org.uk/ BFHS Website: http://www.bucksfhs.org.uk/ Bucks Genuki Website: http://met.open.ac.uk/genuki/big/eng/BKM/ ==== BUCKS Mailing List ==== Questions about the list administration? Contact the listowners: Dave Carlsen - davidcarlsen@charter.net (USA); Judith Young - Arkleside@ntlworld.com (UK)