Can any one tell me if a farm bailiff had to be able to read and write in the 1870s? My grt gr father put down on his marriage cert in 1874 that his father was farm bailiff, I know he could not write as he sign his marriages register with his mark and also when registering the birth of one of his children, he did the same thing. Was Henry trying to make out he was better then the family he was marring into? Sheila.

In message <20041127001441.71763.qmail@web86602.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>, SHEILA REYNOLDS <sheila.reynolds1@btinternet.com> writes > >Can any one tell me if a farm bailiff had to be able to read and write in the >1870s? Someone would have to keep the farm accounts for the owner. The problem is that 'bailiff' was anything from a farm foreman, who organised the workers to plough and reap. with a resident (maybe widowed or elderly) farmer who handled the paperworik, to a proper bailiff, a man left in sole charge of a farm for an absent owner, who would certainly have had to communicate with him/her in writing. > >Was Henry trying to make out he was better then the family he was marring into? maybe so - or maybe his wife could do the writing? -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society