Newsletter – 28th
February 2023
Save 30% at the British Newspaper Archive ENDS TODAY
Child marriages outlawed in England &
Wales
When could you marry in earlier centuries?
Related only by marriage? Not a problem!
Success story: DNA to the rescue
Mind the Gaps! ONLINE TALK
Tracing Ancestors in Wales HALF-DAY ONLINE COURSE
Big savings at The Genealogist
EXCLUSIVE
Save on subscriptions to Who Do You Think You Are?
EXCLUSIVE OFFER
The LostCousins
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(dated 21st February) click here; to find earlier articles use the customised Google search between
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so you don't need to keep copies):
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Save 30% at the British Newspaper Archive ENDS TODAY
You’ve
got just hours to save on a new subscription to the British Newspaper Archive –
the offer ends at midnight (London time) on Tuesday, so if you’re reading this
on Wednesday morning in Australia you might just be in time.
Are
you an Ancestry user? If so it’s a great opportunity to get cut-price access to
an enormous collection of magazines and (mostly) local newspapers that is
otherwise only available to Findmypast subscribers. There are almost 64 million
pages with, by my reckoning, upwards of half a billion articles and literally billions
of names – it’s the biggest online collection of British newspapers there is.
Local
newspapers tend to focus on the activities of local residents – mostly ordinary
people who may have passed exams, taken part in sporting events, appeared in
court as witnesses, or been involved in an accident. You’ll find announcements
of births, marriages, and deaths, but also reports on weddings, many with photographs,
and some listing the names of guests as well as participants. Look through any paid-for
local newspaper today, and you’ll appreciate the scope and scale of what you’ll
get access to!
This
offer isn’t exclusive to LostCousins members, but you will only be supporting
LostCousins when you use the link below:
BRITISH
NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE – SAVE 30% ENDS TUESDAY 28TH
Child marriages outlawed in England & Wales
Since
yesterday it has been illegal for under-18s to marry in England or Wales, and
the new law also prohibits ceremonies which are not legally binding.
As
a BBC article
points out: “Previously forced marriage was only an offence if coercion, such
as threats, was used. But under the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum
Age) Act, it is now illegal to arrange for children to marry under any
circumstances, whether or not force is used.”
The
minimum age remains at 16 in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
When
could you marry in earlier centuries?
Under
Canon Law boys were able to marry at 14, and girls at 12 – and those minimum
ages continued to apply after Civil Registration was introduced in 1837.
Indeed, it was only in 1929 that the minimum age for boys and girls was raised
to 16. Although minors (children under 21) were supposed to have their parents’
consent to marry, a failure to obtain that consent didn’t usually invalidate
the marriage – but see Marriage
Law for Genealogists, a book that should be in the library of every
keen family historian, for more precise information.
But
this article isn’t about age at marriage, it’s about the hours and the days
during which marriages could be celebrated. Browsing through old registers won’t
tell you the time of day at which a marriage ceremony took place, but it will
give the date – and like me, you must have noticed that there are times of the
year when there were fewer marriages.
According
to Professor Rebecca Probert in Marriage Law for Genealogists, in the
early 17th century marriages were allowed from 13th
January to Septuagesima Sunday (the third Sunday before Lent), but were then prohibited
until 8 days after Easter Sunday.
For
example, in 2023 this would mean that they were allowed for the 24 days from 13th
January to 5th February, but then prohibited between 6th February
and 17th April, a period of 70 days. They were then allowed until
Rogation Sunday (14th May in 2023), then prohibited for 3 weeks until
Trinity Sunday (4th June in 2023). Fortunately it was considerably easier
to get married in the second half of the year – marriages were permitted until
the start of Advent (3rd December in 2023).
It
was possible to buy a licence to marry during one of the prohibited periods and,
even without a licence, if the vicar was prepared to take the risk a marriage after
banns would still have been valid. Nevertheless, a consideration of the dates
on which your ancestors married might give you some clues to the circumstances –
particularly if you take into account the timing of the baptism of the couple’s
first child.
Those
restrictions were removed in 1644, but reimposed at the Restoration of the
Monarchy in 1660 – though Professor Probert indicates that the Church had
difficulty enforcing the prohibitions.
There
were also restrictions as to hours – you could only marry between 8am and 12
noon. It has been suggested that the term ‘wedding breakfast’ is a consequence
of the timing, though since this wording was not used until the 1830s it seems
unlikely. Again marriages contracted outside the permitted hours were valid (but
regarded as clandestine), though from 1823 until 1886, when clergy solemnising
a marriage before 8am or after noon became liable to transportation for 14
years, there can have been few examples!
From
1886 the hours were extended to 3pm in the afternoon, and in 1934 they were
extended again – to 6pm.
Illegal weddings and Superintendent Registrar’s
certificates
When
Professor Probert spoke to LostCousins members recently there were some
questions that were still unanswered at the end of the session, and I thought
it would be helpful to share her answers with readers of this newsletter.
‘Illegal’
weddings
One
attendee asked whether it would have been illegal for a man to marry his
deceased brother’s wife in the 1830's. Such a marriage was certainly within the
list of “prohibited degrees”. Its precise status would depend on when it was
celebrated. If it was before 31 August 1835 then it would have been validated
by the Marriage Act 1835 – but if after that date it would have been
automatically void.
So
it was ‘illegal’ in the sense of not being recognised as valid – but it was not
a criminal offence and so couples who did marry within the prohibited degrees
could not be prosecuted. However, there are occasional examples of individuals
being prosecuted for perjury under the Marriage Act 1836 for making a false
declaration that they were free to marry before the superintendent registrar.
Another
related question was about the penalties for someone officiating at a void
marriage. The Marriage Act 1835 doesn’t address this point and the Marriage Act
1836 only sets out the penalties for superintendent registrars and registrars
who allow marriages to go ahead where the formal requirements haven’t been
properly observed. That said, the church courts would no doubt have taken a dim
view of clergy who conducted marriages that they knew to be void!
The
"Superintendent Registrar's Certificate"
A
Superintendent Registrar’s Certificate was introduced by the Marriage Act 1836
as the standard preliminary for non-Anglican weddings. It cost a shilling to
give notice and another shilling for the certificate to be issued, with a
mandatory waiting period of 21 days. During that time notices of the marriage
were either read before the Poor Law Board of Guardians (before 1857) or simply
posted up in the register office (from 1857).
A
Superintendent Registrar’s Certificate could also be used to authorise an
Anglican wedding in place of banns or licence – although from 1856 Anglican
clergy were entitled to refuse to accept the certificate and insist on Anglican
preliminaries!
Most
of us are likely to have examples in our tree of widowers who married their
dead wife’s sister at a time when it was prohibited – indeed, I have three examples
in my maternal grandfather’s tree, one of whom was his father, my great-grandfather.
Such marriages were retrospectively legalised in 1907, but it was nevertheless a
subject that wasn’t spoken about in my family – my late aunt, born in 1916,
knew that there was something ‘wrong’ with the marriage, but not what the
problem was. It was good to be able to put her mind at rest.
Prior
to 1911 the marriage indexes for England & Wales didn’t include the surname
of the spouse – which created enormous problems for those of us who started our
research ‘in the old days’.
Eventually
the General Register Office (GRO) indexes were transcribed by FreeBMD
volunteers, and later by Findmypast (then known as 1837online). How did this
help? It enabled the quarterly entries to be sorted, not just by name, but
according to the volume and page references.
Although
the volume and page references relates to the copy registers held by the GRO,
those registers were compendiums of bundles of loose pages sent to the GRO by
individual churches and register offices. When two people married they signed
the same page of the bound register kept by the church or register office – and
when the marriage entry was copied for submission to the GRO the two names
would be on the same loose page.
How
did that enable researchers to work out who had married who? Typically there
are two marriages per page, so there are only four people with the same index
references, two males and two females. Back in the days when marriage was
between a man and a woman there would have been only two possible ways that those
four people could have been joined together in holy matrimony.
Related only by marriage? Not a problem!
Although
the primary reason LostCousins exists is to connect family historians who share
the same ancestors (and are both researching them), it would be wrong to dismiss
a connection simply because the other member is only related by marriage.
For
example, at the end of last week I received this email from Sue:
Peter, I just wanted to say 'Thank you so
much' for running the competition in January. It spurred me on to enter a lot
more 'cousins' and I made a new contact!
We are only cousins by marriage but he has
been so helpful with sharing information and I have been able to solve one of
my brick walls.
I now have a new enthusiasm for my research
and that's thanks to you. The lectures have been so interesting and the offer
for membership of The Genealogist most welcome.
Sometimes
a researcher who at first appears to be only related by marriage turns out to
be a cousin – but unless you correspond with them you’ll never know. And even
if the only connection is a marriage, the descendants of that union will be
cousins to both of you, something that is more important than ever now
that most of our ‘brick walls’ come tumbling down as a result of DNA matches.
Success story: DNA to the rescue
Another
Sue was in touch last week – she was responding to the article
in the last issue in which Chris explained how she had knocked down several ‘brick
walls’ using DNA.
Very interesting articles about
"brick walls" being knocked down by DNA testing. I was finally able to knock down a brick wall
myself this week due to DNA testing done by my father. My paternal grandmother had always told us,
and written down on family tree sheets, that her grandfather, Alfred Taylor
Moore, was born in 1840 in Ireland, and that her grandmother's name was Marie
Morey. No amount of research had found these two relatives, until, out of the
blue, a genetic cousin in Australia contacted us - he is related through the
Morey branch. Suddenly, a brick wall
came tumbling down and we now find that Alfred was actually born in Woodbridge,
Suffolk, and that Marie was actually Martha.
We don't know why my grandmother had come up with this false information
- perhaps it came from her mother? Who
knows? And the morale of the story is,
take any family tales or sagas with a pinch of salt, and do your own research -
hopefully with a bit of DNA help along the way.
I
know how Sue must have felt because for me it happened round the other way – my
great-great grandmother was baptised a Catholic to Irish parents, but nobody in
the family seems to have known of her Irish Catholic origins, and her children
were baptised in the Church of England. I tracked down a copy of the biography
of her grand-daughter in the hope that there be some clues, but though my
ancestor was mentioned in the book there was nothing to hint at her origins.
Mind
the Gaps! ONLINE TALK
I
know that a lot of you were mightily impressed by the short video from
professional genealogist Dave Annal which I linked to in the last
issue – so you might well be interested in a live Zoom presentation that he
is giving under the auspices of the Society of Genealogists. It is entitled Mind the Gaps! Understanding and Improving
your Online Searches, so it’s a topic where we can all learn something new.
The
talk takes place between 10.30 and 11.30am (London time) on Saturday 11th
March. You’ll find more details here
– it’s only £10, and if you’re an SoG member like me it’s just £6.50
Tip:
recordings of most SoG talks, including this one, are available to attendees
for 14 days afterwards, so don’t worry if you’re going to be busy on the day –
book anyway.
Tracing Ancestors in Wales HALF-DAY
ONLINE COURSE
My
wife is three-quarters Welsh, so this half-day course run by Gill Thomas on behalf
of the Society of Genealogists is right up her street – though she’ll have to
watch the recording, as there’s something else in her diary that can’t be moved.
The
course takes place between 10.30am and 12.45pm (London time) on Saturday 4th
March and costs £20 (£16 for members of the SoG) – you can find out more and
book here.
Big savings at The Genealogist EXCLUSIVE
The
final presentation for entrants in this winter’s competition featured Mark
Bayley from The Genealogist speaking about ‘Mapping Your Ancestors’, focusing
particularly on the powerful Map Explorer feature – which makes use of tithe
maps, censuses, and the 1910 Lloyd George ‘Domesday’ survey to help you
identify where your ancestors lived.
If
you weren’t fortunate enough to be invited, or were unable to attend, you’ll be
interested to know that there is a short (20 minute) video online which
demonstrates Map Explorer – you’ll find it here.
Mark
has also arranged a special offer for LostCousins members – you can get a £40 ‘lifetime’
discount on an annual Diamond subscription, reducing the cost to £99.95 a year.
In
the first year you’ll also get a Digital Research Pack worth over £64:
12
month Subscription to Discover Your Ancestors online magazine (worth
£24.99)
TreeView
2
Discount Voucher (worth £10.00)
Discover
Your Ancestors' Occupations by Laura Berry (digital edition - worth £9.95)
Researching
and Locating Your Ancestors by Celia Heritage (digital edition - worth £9.95)
Regional
Research Guidebook
by Andrew Chapman (digital edition - worth £9.95)
Discover
Your Ancestors Periodical Compendium 2021 (digital edition - worth £9.95)
By
my calculation that’s a saving of over £100 in the first year!
To
take advantage of the offer please follow this link.
Save on subscriptions to Who Do You Think You Are?
EXCLUSIVE OFFER
The
exclusive offer I’ve arranged for LostCousins members is still running but
please note that it applies only to print copies, not the digital edition.
I've
been a reader of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine ever since issue 1,
and I can tell you from personal experience that every issue is packed with
advice on how to research your family tree, including how to track down online
records, how to get more from DNA tests, and the ever-popular readers' stories.
Naturally you also get to look behind-the-scenes of the popular Who Do You
Think You Are? TV series.
There's
an extra special introductory offer for members in the UK, but there are also offers
for overseas readers, each of which offers a substantial saving on the cover
price:
UK - try 6 issues for just
£9.99 - saving 68%
Europe - 13 issues (1 year)
for €65 - saving 33%
Australia
& New Zealand
- 13 issues (1 year) for AU $99 - saving 38%
US
& Canada
– 13 issues for US $69.99 – saving 59%
Rest
of the world
- 13 issues (1 year) for US $69.99 – saving 41%
To
take advantage of any of these deals (and to support LostCousins) please follow
this link.
Wherever
you are in the world you’ve probably heard that there’s a shortage of vegetables
and salads in Britain at the moment. Some supermarkets are limiting the amounts
that customers can purchase, and if you shop for groceries online (as I do) the choice can be very restricted.
There
was an extremely limited choice of lettuces when I placed my order this week –
I could order only one pack of Romaine lettuce hearts, and the only other type
of lettuce in stock was Little Gem. And they certainly were LITTLE when they
arrived – I couldn’t believe that the delivery driver could keep a straight
face when handing them over. The first thing I did was weigh the packet – it
came to just 133g, including the plastic bag, which gives you some idea just
how teeny weeny those two lettuces were.
Today
is the last day of February – which means that if my full-fibre broadband isn’t
working by the end of the day, I’ll have been let down yet again by Openreach
and Vodafone (you will recall that it was originally supposed to be up and
running on 19th December last year). Let’s hope that this time they
meet their self-imposed deadline!
Turning
to more important matters, in the early hours of this morning New Zealand’s
cricketers beat England by a single run in one of the most exciting test
matches of all time. It took me back 60 years to another tense finish, when
England were playing the West Indies at Lords, the home of cricket. With two
balls to go, one wicket standing, and six runs needed for victory, Colin
Cowdrey came in to bat with a broken wrist – for a 12 year-old schoolboy this
was high drama. As I remembered it Cowdrey with his arm in plaster had to face
Wes Hall, the world’s fastest bowler, but in reality he was at the non-striker’s
end, watching as his partner fended off the last two balls (you can re-live the
moment here – it’s around
18 minutes from the beginning).
This is where any major updates and corrections will be
highlighted - if you think you've spotted an error first reload the newsletter
(press Ctrl-F5) then
check again before writing to me, in case someone else has beaten you to
it......
I’ll be back soon with more news from the world of family history,
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2023 Peter Calver
Please do NOT copy or republish any part of this newsletter without permission - which is only granted in the most exceptional circumstances. However, you MAY link to this newsletter or any article in it without asking for permission - though why not invite other family historians to join LostCousins instead, since standard membership (which includes the newsletter), is FREE?
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