On Tue, 9 Jul 2013 13:55:56 +0100, "Tony Proctor" <tony@proctor_NoMore_SPAM.net> wrote: >I have encountered an unusual item of evidence and wanted to ask how other >people would interpret it. > >My ancestor William Elliott (b. c1841 Uttoxeter) married a Sarah Woods (b. >1859 Kensington) in Burton-on-Trent on 9/10/1881. I found that William was >previously married to a Sarah Elizabeth Wildgoose (b. c1841 Darley Dale). I >assumed that she had died, even though I could find no death record, but >something was troubling me: In the 1881 census William was lodging with his >second "wife", and their son William who was born in the January. However, >William didn't marry Sarah Woods until the October which is quite a long >time after their son's birth. > >I'd seen this pattern before, though, and started working on the theory that >he and his first wife had separated, and that he was waiting for 7-years of >complete separation (as provided for in the Offences Against the Person Act >1861, section.57) to pass. > The presumption of death after 7 years was a Common Law matter with consequential effects on associated marriages, inheritance etc. The 1861 Act didn't provide that presumption but just confirmed that the Act did not over-ride the existing law. >If true then he separated from Sarah Wildgoose >around October 1874, and his move from Derbyshire to Staffordshire may have >been part of the plan. > >There was a Sarah Wildgoose of the right age, also from Darley Dale, who >married a Joseph Woodhouse in Bakewell district (Matlock parish) on >20/4/1874. I could see that they had a child in the September so she was >already pregnant when they married. If it was the same Sarah Wildgoose then >she may have ignored the 7-year provision and got married as quickly as >possible. Joseph may have even been the cause of the split from William >Elliott. This Sarah never used any middlename but that could have been a >vague attempt to obfuscate the connection. Unfortunately, that child later >died as an infant. > >Everything seemed to fit together in the theory but I needed some evidence >that clinched it. I applied for a copy of this marriage to Joseph Woodhouse >and was rather surprised to find all the bride's-father fields crossed out, >with nothing recorded. Could it be that this was a different Sarah who >simply didn't know her father, or that the marriage was really bigamous and >she wanted muddy the trail? > > Tony Proctor >