symonds3 wrote: > Hi Gary, > There's no obvious divorce at the UK Archives (type in the name, and J77 in > the Dept/Series Code). No idea if John obtained a divorce in Australia > though - not in Victorian or NSW indexes, but don't know about Queensland. > There's also some UK statute about a marriage being declared void if a > partner went missing overseas for 7 years, (it didn't matter if you knew > whether they were alive or dead; it also covered a lot of the convicts sent > to Australia, and enabled them to remarry) and allows for a remarriage > without it being a felony (bigamy). The only rider to that is that if first, legal, spouse turned up again, the second marriage would be declared null and void and any children born to the second marriage would be deemed illegitimate. The first marriage would then be resumed as though nothing had happened. > John's marriage certificate for his second marriage might make for some > interesting reading. The usual marital condition is bachelor and widow if there were children. If the husband had taken the children: widower and spinster or widower and widow. Never mind the truth, it was all about respectibility. I've just had the 2nd marriage certs for a couple who married in 1938 and 1939. The husband declared himself a bachelor and the wife a widow. Both were telling porkies but neither were caught out, so they both got away with bigamy. The wife went on to re-register her youngest child who'd been born in 1926 (and now long deceased) and whose father was the 2nd "husband". -- Charani (UK) OPC for Walton, Greinton and Clutton, SOM Asst OPC for Ashcott and Shapwick, SOM http://wsom-opc.org.uk