Genealogy Chat

The more I dig, the more I realise that very few people ever married a random stranger. They are all distantly related, either through blood or by marriage and some of these links are several generations before. So, what appeared to be a random pairing between a Lancashire man and a woman from Stafford, turned out to be - his great grandfather's sister had married a man from Stafford and several generations were born there. It was one of these descendants that he married. I can usually trace this sort of connection if I look hard enough! And the same often applies to sevants too - turn out to be a daughter of an impoverished branch of the family living in another county. As for how they managed to move around - well, train travel was extremely cheap in the 1800s, as was travel by canal barge. OC

thanks Lynn I am glad too, otherwise I would not be meeting nice people on here like you!!!. Merry that sounds horrendous, I would be pulling my Hair out at that.

I have a lot of Quaker rellies, from Bristol, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. There were various towns and villages that were Quaker strongholds and many spouses came from one of the other areas, because of distant cousin relationships. This sometimes causes problems for the tree........such as Mary Marshall living in the same street as John Tyler on the census .....a year later they marry. But do they???? No, she has married his first cousin with the same name, from 50 miles away! Merry

Thanks Val, I did as much checking as a could, there were a lot of John Smiths, even then. I read about your bad luck with the certs, glad you decided not to take drastic action! Lynn :- )

god luck Lynn hope its the right Cert I have had some bad luck with mine recently. Yes thats some miles isnt it??? I dont even like travelling these days and it must be a lot better now.

I have a John Free Smith, from Lincolnshire, who married a Scottish woman. I think I have tracked down their marriage to Norham in Northumberland and am waiting for the cert to prove it. They had 2 children in Nothumberland, before retuning to Lincolnshire. That seems to be a lot of travellin for the mid 1800's, how did they manage it? Lynn

I used to live in Datchet just 2 miles from Windsor, I bet it was beautiful in those days .Wouldnt it be good if we could go back just for a week maybe and see what happened . as long as nobody could see us.

it is fascinating this research isnt it, I found on a Census the Head of the House was in Wales away from his family who were in london , on the next Census he is home with a Servant and a baby both born in Wales ????? I wonder who the Father was????.

Gosh, yes, Valerie, all the time. My mother's father died when she was 2, but he was in the Coldstream Guards and my mother once told me he met her mother when he was stationed in Windsor. My grandmother was in service and was staying in Windsor at the time. I wonder how it happened? Was she walking down the street on her afternoon off and she dropped something, and he gallantly picked it up for her? You can weave all sorts of wonderful stories, can't you. But the one that puzzles me the most is my 3 x great grandparents, who married in Scarborough in 1808. He was born in Pocklington, Yorkshire. She was born just outside Crawley in Sussex. He was 17 when they married and she, if her age on the censuses and her death cert are to be believed, was 12!!!!! So what was a 12 year old from Sussex doing in Scarborough anyway in 1808? Despite the rather strange beginning, they were married for 48 years, eventually settling in Stockport. Yes, that's part of the attraction of this Family History lark. All the unanswered questions, all the stories we shall probably never know, all the fantasies one can weave. How can anyone not be fascinated by it. Tina

I like to guess but we`ll never know the answers.! Were they visiting a different part of the country- but many folk didn`t travel in years gone by. Ros

Like you, I have ancestors born in Somerset but married people from or in London and other places. Only explaination I can think of is employment. Many girls/women went into service, sometimes a long way away from home. And I have some lads who also went into service, either as house servants or grooms. If the men werent Ag Labs but were something like blacksmiths or bakers etc - then a village could only support a certain number of those, and so they had to travel to find work.

I am often amazed at how far they travelled considering it could not have been easy.And I have Grooms who were born in Somerset marrying people born in London etc etc etc .I would love to find out how they met, and where .