Under Miscellaneous Wants in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette Friday 08 January 1897 I found the following: TO MINISTERS, PARISH CLERKS, AND OTHERS WANTED, MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE of WILLIAM CHALLICE, late of Lapford, Devon, and CHARLOTTE W. PARTRIDGE, about the year 1810 (?). One Guinea will be paid for same or information leading to confirmation of the same. Apply, EDWARD J. BRUTTON, Solicitor, Exeter. These were my 3x great grandparents, and I have the application for a marriage licence, a copy of the parish record, and a newspaper cutting to show that William Challice married Charlotte Wills Partridge in Lapford parish church 6th April 1818. Charlotte died in 1828 and William in 1833, leaving five children aged between 5 and 15 years. Can anyone suggest why a solicitor would have been looking for proof of their marriage so long after the deaths of William and Charlotte? And are there any CHALLICE or PARTRIDGE descendants reading this? Paul Challice Daventry UK

Hi Paul One reason for seeking it that I can think of is that he wanted to take out Letters of Administration (probably of a later descendant)and to do so needed to prove all descendants were legitimate. If the marriage didn't take place, then there may have been a group of people descended from the couple who would not have qualified under the intestacy rules. I think they would have needed to have traced cousins and maybe second cousins of the actual deceased (unspecified I guess) to make sure they had everyone entitled to a share in an estate and none who weren't. Does the firm of solicitors still exist? Their records may well exist even if they do not. Maybe the Law Society can help trace the descent of the solicitors and thereby the descent of the records? I think they used Chancery Agents years ago before microfilms and internet. They were based in London and were always regarded as the disreputable end of genealogy when I started out. They may have traced a case on behalf of the solicitors and may also be a line of enquiry to try to follow up on. Jon -----Original Message----- From: devon-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:devon-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Challice Sent: 25 January 2014 15:01 To: DEVON@rootsweb.com Subject: [DEV] William CHALLICE and Charlotte PARTRIDGE of Lapford. Under Miscellaneous Wants in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette Friday 08 January 1897 I found the following: TO MINISTERS, PARISH CLERKS, AND OTHERS WANTED, MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE of WILLIAM CHALLICE, late of Lapford, Devon, and CHARLOTTE W. PARTRIDGE, about the year 1810 (?). One Guinea will be paid for same or information leading to confirmation of the same. Apply, EDWARD J. BRUTTON, Solicitor, Exeter. These were my 3x great grandparents, and I have the application for a marriage licence, a copy of the parish record, and a newspaper cutting to show that William Challice married Charlotte Wills Partridge in Lapford parish church 6th April 1818. Charlotte died in 1828 and William in 1833, leaving five children aged between 5 and 15 years. Can anyone suggest why a solicitor would have been looking for proof of their marriage so long after the deaths of William and Charlotte? And are there any CHALLICE or PARTRIDGE descendants reading this? Paul Challice Daventry UK ------------------------------------------ The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) and the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) List archive for Devon can be found at http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message