The skeleton that never was I have had information on my g.g.grandfather James WELLS for many years, he was born 1826 in Suffolk, married my g.g.grandmother in 1857, they had thirteen children but sadly my g.g.grandmother died eight hours after giving birth to their last and thirteenth child at 8:20pm 16th December 1874 In the next (1881) census he was on his own a widower, by 1891 he has a 2nd "wife" likewise 1901 & 1911, helpfully he fills in the 1911 schedule with "2nd wife" against her name and in the column how many children to this marriage he has written "none, all by first marriage" I had no clues as to her birth name I had searched for over ten years for his marriage to no avail, I had all but given up, believing he just lived in sin with her A cousin simply could not believe that and continued to cling to the thought that he did marry I try and go over the old stumbling blocks now and then and having looked at his notes for something else decided to have one last try, so I emailed the local registrars office in a last hope that he may have married but the details were not sent to the GRO (I feel sure I had done this years ago but could not find record of it) I sent that mail and decided to check Ancestry one more time while awaiting a reply, I checked the normal way using wild cards etc, nothing , I looked through my notes again to find there was a silver wedding present given by his son engraved as follows To Father on his Silver Wedding Nov 15th 1906 >From Walter & Lottie I had already checked the PRs for Parishes around his long time residence So I tried the marriages on Ancestry for a James who married an Ann in 1881, there were many so I looked through them all to see if there was a possible transcription error, to cut the story short I found a James WILLS with a marriage date of 16th Nov 1881, close I thought and worth a look And yes it was he, married miles away from where I would have expected him to, the maiden name of the Ann was revealed and checking back in the census I saw why I had not connected her before as she was on her own in every census including the 1841 where she was a servant aged 10, her father was next door to my g.g.grandfather in 1841 The moral of this waffling tale is simple, don't ever give up My elated cousin was most pleased to be proved right It was a pleasant gift to give her :-) Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK)