Common Law Relationships in 18th Century England

While old English communities no doubt frowned on unmarried couples living together, and certainly would not have approved of them having children together, there is no reason to suppose it was uncommon.

When we look at baptism entries in older parish registers we often find children with second names and, occasionally, more than one child in a family had the same second name. I pointed out in a post on March 17, 2015 that some children were given the names of their grandparents or great-grandparents as second forenames. But there was also a group for which no father was listed and an assumption was made that the second name was really the missing father’s surname.

I was contacted by a family researcher recently to see if I could find burial information on a man named Amos Rice. We found a marriage record for him, to Sarah Bond, in the marriage register for Plympton St. Mary parish, Devon, dated April 13, 1784. Both were shown as resident in the parish. There was no baptism entry for him. In fact there were no families of that name in the area prior to the 1800s. We have not found a death or burial entry for him either although Sarah was buried in the parish in 1818 at the age of 78.

The parish baptism register did not show any children of the couple at least with the name Rice. But there were seven entries for children of Sarah Bond between 1763 and 1784, all of them “base born” and four of them with a second name of Rice. The Rice name began with the 1777 baptism. The last child was baptized just 23 days before Amos and Sarah were married. The coincidence of second names strongly suggests that the couple was living together for at least seven years. What finally prompted them to make it legal is anyone’s guess at this point.

There is no evidence about where Amos had come from or what happened to him after his marriage to Sarah, other than mentions of the family in a series of entries in the Overseers Register of Applicants for Relief between 1805 and 1823. It appears that Amos was sick and/or in need, possibly for many years. The parish provided cash and clothes to assist the family, including help for an unmarried daughter who was “in childbed”.

Judging by the entries it seems likely that most of the entries that mentioned an Amos Rice were actually for the son of Amos and Sarah. The only one that can be linked to Amos Senior is an 1806 entry when and entry showing that funds were paid to Sarah also indicated “Husband ill”. In all entries after that it is not possible to distinguish where the relief was paid to Amos Senior or Amos Junior.

Amos Junior’s story is interesting as well. He was baptized in 1777 as Amos Rice Bond. He was also married under that name in 1799. But all of his children were baptized with the surname Rice with one of them having a second name of Bond. He was also buried as Amos Rice in 1842, in Plymptons St. Mary parish. It is clear he was eventually convinced that his father was, in fact, Amos Rice and that he should carry that name.

In the parish marriage register there are four marriages that could be for children of this family. Mary Bond married Robert Shiers in 1791; she may not have been Amos’ daughter as she was one of Sarah’s children that did not have a second name of Rice. Amos Rice Bond, as mentioned above, married Mary Warren in 1799. Ann Rice married David Dunn in 1801; she had been baptized as Annrice Bond in 1778. Sarah Rice married Robert Andrews in 1804; she also had been baptized with the surname Bond in 1784. The last two grooms were soldiers and not from the Plympton area.

So we have another example of people whose surname changed over time. In this case it appears the children knew who their parents were and the number with the second name of Rice indicates the couple lived together in what we would now consider a common law relationship.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated

Letters From My Aunt

My Aunt Doris (one of my mother’s older sisters) was the original family historian in my family. She compiled a great deal of information in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. I have mentioned her in passing on previous posts (September 9, 2014, September 16, 2014, October 4, 2014). Her work inspired me to get involved in genealogy.

 

Doris Marguerite (Miller) Schnur (1904-1995) – photo taken in 1940 in Oahu, Hawaii, USA

Of course, research when Doris was active was done by mail – back and forth to libraries, court houses and record offices – and by personal visits to those places. My aunt travelled widely across the US to obtain information about our ancestors, also visiting cousins who were also involved in the investigations. Imagine doing all that work and spending all that time, and perhaps not even finding what you hoped for or needed.

She produced several copies of her family history, dozens of pages long and all typed – using carbon paper so she could do three or four at a time. When she had a lot of new information she would retyped almost the whole thing again. I have a couple of versions she sent to my mother, produced at different stages of her work. These are like family heirlooms in themselves.

Doris was always delighted to hear that others were interested in the family history and shared all of her work generously. On one copy to a cousin she wrote a preface that said:

These copies are presented under the following philosophy: Data in this book came from public records and from the descendants of Asa Harvey McDaniel.  It is not copyrighted nor will it be.  Any who wish to copy any or all of the contents are free to do so.  Our wish is that the results of our work will give pleasure to those interested in our family history.

          Doris - March 1971.

Much of her work has been reproduced in many family trees as well as in family books. I recognize her work on many Ancestry trees, unfortunately none of it is attributed to her.

Not only was her family history all typed up neatly, she also typed all the letters she sent to family members. I have several she sent to my mother and copies she wrote to a cousin who was also involved in genealogy. And I have kept the one she sent to me in 1986 after she learned I was also interested in the subject, with all of its personal wishes, family information and wonderful typos.

The letters, themselves, are filled with information she had found and you can feel the excitement she had in both the discovery and the sharing of it with others, such as in the 1969 letter to my mother which she started with, “I hit the jackpot this morning when the mail came!”

Her letters were always full of current and relevant news about her family, too. Looking back and reading these letters now adds a great deal of information about people, like her, who are gone. We get a real understanding of who they were and what their lives were like. Some of the letters went on for pages like the one below to Cousin Mildred with whom she shared grandparents. Many copies I have also contain notes written into the margins both by Doris and by Mildred which add to the stories she told.

It’s too bad people don’t write letters any more. Emails and Facebook pages are nice but rarely do they show the enthusiasm of the author or have so much information about family as do those that people took the time to write and post.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated

Hugh and the Isabels

No, this is not the name of a rock band. Hugh McKay was my wife’s great-grandfather and he married twice, both times to women named Isabel. That confused us for a while as he appeared on censuses from 1851 to 1901 with a wife of that name but on the 1861 census, both the woman’s age and place of birth changed. That led us to find the death record for the first Isabel, on February 15, 1856 and a second marriage for Hugh on May 15, 1857.

Hugh was born in Banffshire. He had five children between 1847 and 1856, with the first Isabella: John, Barbara, Hugh, George and Isabella. He had five more between 1858 and 1869 with the second Isabel: James, William, Robert, Jessie and Mary. This all seems easy to put together in hindsight. But before we figured it all out, we were actually looking at a different family, thinking they were connected.

We had found out his name from the 1869 birth record of his son, Alexander. His mother was shown as Isabella, nee Scott. That, in turn, led us to their marriage in 1857. The 1871 census showed Alexander (age 1) along with three other children: James (12), William (11) and Mary (4). That information helped us to identify the family on the 1861 census as well. The curious thing was that the 1861 census showed two children born before 1857, Barbara (13) and George (9).

 

1857 marriage record for Hugh McKay and Isabella Scott in Dallas, Elgin. Hugh was born in Macduff, Banffshire, Isabella in Edinkillie, Morayshire. (Image from records obtained through ScotlandsPeople)

We set out looking for those children and found a family of a Hugh and Isabel in Gamrie, Banffshire, on the 1851 census, with children named Margret, George, Isabella and Barbara. The wife’s maiden name, we discovered, was Isabel Smollet. We actually carried this family on our family tree for a while because, what are the odds that the father, mother and three children would have the same names in two different families from the same area. Quite high, as it transpired! A closer inspection (finally) showed the ages and places of birth were different than what was on later censuses although we did not recognize this in the beginning.

1839 marriage record for the wrong Hugh McKay to Isobel Smollet in Forgue, Aberdeenshire. This family resided in Gamrie, Banffshire in 1841 which confused us into thinking he was our Hugh. (Image from records obtained through ScotlandsPeople)

It all worked until we found a grand-daughter of Hugh and Isabel on the 1891 and 1901 censuses. She had been born in Perthshire in 1887. From the census data, we found her birth record and parents’ names, George and Ann (nee Phillips). More searching led us to find that family on other census records. His age there did not match up with the Hugh McKay and Isabel Smollet family. So they were all pruned from our family tree.

Finally we realized that Hugh had married a different Isabel, or rather Isabella Thompson in 1845. The ages of their children, especially George, were in line with other data. Not everything fit, however, as the marriage record for George and Ann showed the maiden names of both mothers as Anderson. That was clearly a mistake, on the part of the clerk no doubt, since his parents’ forenames were correct. We have also not found the birth records of the children of Hugh and Isabella although we know their names from the censuses. That was part of the problem in identifying the actual family.

 

1845 marriage record for Hugh McKay of Gamrie, Banffshire and Isabella Thompson of Aucterless, Aberdeenshire. Austerless is only 7 miles from Forgue and both are about 20 miles from Gamrie. The marriage was also recorded in the parish register of Gamrie and Macduff. (Image from records obtained through ScotlandsPeople)

We are pretty confident that we have the right relationships now even though not all records have been obtained. What is clear is that at least two Hugh McKays had an attraction to women named Isabel! And also to children’s names of Barbara, George, Isabella and William!

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated