Genealogy Chat

I was wondering how common it would be in the early 1700s for a 'common' person to marry someone of higher class status?

I forgot to add that the woman in my research is of higher class and the man is of the lower class.

I think that might depend on how much money there was in the family.

Younger children of wealthy people and nobles tended not to inherit as much as the eldest child (especially the eldest son) and might have ended up marrying someone whose family background was from a lower social class.

One of my family branches went from Royalty in the Middle Ages to ag lab in Victorian times on some lines.

However........marriages were often more contracts between families rather than love matches and I think parents would have encouraged their children to marry well. You only have to read Jane Austin to realise that in Georgian England it was considered really important to try to marry someone with wealth if possible.

Meanwhile the newly rich would have tried to marry off their children to people with titles. My 8x great grandfather was the younger son (by a second wife) of an Earl and he married a woman with no title but who was from a family of rich merchants. He wrote in his memoirs how much he hated her and how peevish she was despite the great favour he'd done her!

If the woman in your family was a wealthy widow and in charge of her own wealth then perhaps she could marry who she liked for love but it would have been less likely as a first marriage I think unless the "lower class" husband had made his fortune somehow.

Sue
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Thanks for your help.

She is the second born of the Widdrington family, she lived at Blankney hall, the hall was a considerable estate but was destroyed in a fire in the 1800s. Her family were strict Catholics. Her father was a baron and she is related to sirs and lords too and eventually royalty. Her father died much before when she would have married, her brother William took over as baron.

I know for certain the man (George Dove) married a woman called Apollonia and they had their children in Caythorpe 13 miles from Blankney.

Please note: I have no record of their marriage but as they had multiple children, I assume they were.

I was just thinking that her brothers were involved with the Jacobite rising, quote from wikipedia: "He took part in the Jacobite rising of 1715, and with two of his brothers was taken prisoner after the Battle of Preston. He was convicted of high treason and condemned to death but he was reprieved and although his title and estates were forfeited, he was not executed, but was allowed to retire to Bath." I think it is possible this may have influenced Apollonia in some way because a lot of the family's money was gone.

I have found some Widdringtons on this site
http://www.genealogics.org/index.php

This is an excellent database but doesn't have every link.

I also looked at a Lincolnshire database and found one Widdrington and a number of Doves
http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=linclinks

It may be that George Dove had some money or perhaps it was a love match. I would have thought Apollonia's father or mother (or perhaps a sibling) might have mentioned her in a will. Have you looked at her family wills?

Sue
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Sounds like the money went with the title and estates!

In that case Apollonia may have been grateful to find a husband.

Sue

I have a problem that stirnet.com says Apollonia then (nun), but I don't know about the creditability of this.

Thanks for the links I'm about to look in a second. No I haven't looked wills, how would I be able to find some?

I have also looked through the entire list on IGI for Apollonias born around the rough birth date and she is the only one anywhere near Caythorpe.

For the wills available online go to
http://www.documentsonline.pro.gov.uk/

Search under wills and put in Widdrington. 25 appear there and one is the will of The Right Honorable William Lord Widdrington Baron of Blankney 04 May 1695
Others appear to be Blankney Widdringtons too.

It will cost you £3.50 to download any you are interested in.

The Lincolnshire Records Office may have more available but you'd have to contact them to find out how to get copies.



The IGI is very patchy for UK parishes and just because you can't see another Apollonia doesn't mean they don't exist I'm afraid.

Stirnet tends to be fairly accurate though I have found some errors on lines I've looked at in the past.

Sue

Just a thought.

If you are going by the IGI how can you tell what "class" George Dove belongs to?

Even the wealthy and titled tend to be listed under their names only on parish registers.

Sue

You're right I can't be sure, but it's an assumption based on his descendants, but you're right in saying he may have had money.

I downloaded the will and Apollonia was given two thousand pounds from her father William.

That is a huge amount of money for then!

If she was wealthy in her own right then perhaps she chose her own marriage,
However I do feel she'd be unlikely to marry someone really different from outside her own social group.

I'm a bit concerned about that stirnet mention of her being a nun. Could you contact the Stirnet site owners and ask where that particular piece of information was sourced?

Sue
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The branch of my family which started off as nobility slipped down the social scale but it happened over a number of generations. As younger sons of younger sons married they chose women who matched the social scale they found themselves in rather than the one they'd been born into.
If an older brother had inherited most of the land plus any title, that meant they had little to offer a bride and her family were likely to be from a family whose wealth matched the groom and not his father.
So my 8x g grandfather was the son of an Earl (Henry Clinton-Fiennes) but his brother became the next Earl and my ancestor was Sir Henry Fynes.
I am then descended from a younger son of Sir Henry by a second wife. This son had no title and wasn't a Sir.
By the time you get down to the next generations the younger sons are marrying the daughters of yeomen then later farmers and eventually publicans and even agricultural labourers.

Meanwhile the first borns go on being wealthy and titled.

On a larger scale this is how it is estimated that most English are descended from the early Norman and Plantagenet royals and nobility. It doesn't take many generations of slipping down the scale before the family have forgotten they might have ever had noble roots on a line or two.

Sue
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Sorry about this, but Boyd's Marriage Index has George Dove marrying Appolonia Allen in 1712.

This is from the British Origins site. The only other information given is "Canterbury Diocese". An expert on Boyd's may be able to tell you where "Canterbury Diocese" entries were actually taken from.

I can't see a licence from the Vicar-General or the Faculty Office.

That rather ends the puzzle then. Looks like it was a totally different Apollonia.

I've noticed going through a lot of parish records that names tend to be popular in batches. I wouldn't be surprised if there were several girls baptised with the same name around the same time.

Doesn't look like you have that link via the rich family after all. That's a shame but perhaps you can now get further back with the Dove and Allen families.

Good luck
Sue
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Well that ends lots of confusion. I can't thank you enough for your help, this was a big puzzle for me and it is now solved, thanks.

Im in the same situation as Sue, I couldnt believe it when I found the status of one line of my ancestors - but again it was a case of eldest son got the title and dosh and the younger ones got trades or professions and well I guess in all families there are kids who arent that bright or are unambitious, whatever, and in a say 4 or 5 generations you have guys who are doing skilled trades or ag labs whose ancestors were titled.]

However, that nun business also worries me. And there was a tendency as a sort of grovel for lesser gentry to name their children the same as the local Lords.

DOH, just seen the last posting :(

Exactly the same thing happened with my family.

From the 12th century and all throughout the middle ages they were wealthy landowners, owning a large part of Lancashire. I have traced my own particular branch to the early 1700s, but they were poor agricultural labourers by that time.

By the mid 1700s the land and money had all been lost to them due to high taxation of and penalties against Catholics.

The original manor, Samlesbury Hall, still stands and is run by a charitable organisation. Whenever I visit, I feel both strange and saddened that I'm walking around my ancestral home as a tourist.

When I told the tour guide that I was a member of the old family he told me that quite a few other visitors had told him the same. I suppose it could be a good idea to set up some kind of message board there as a way to make contacts.

Amanda

Yes that would be a good idea.

My cousin and I have found out about the ancestral home in Shropshire - we have been told by the local historian that it is now owned by an MP but that he feels the chap would be happy to show us around with all the information we submitted to him. But, I dont know, cousin is keen but Im not sure how Id feel - LOL.