Why did my ancestors marry twice?
QTwo of my ancestors, father and son, each had register office marriages to the same person twice over. How can this duplication be explained?
Francis Arthur Leath, a widower, married Annie Osborne, a widow, at the Register Office at Chorlton, Manchester on 6 January 1920. On 27 August 1928 they were recorded as being married again, this time in the Register Office of Manchester South.
Similarly, his son, Ernest Arthur Leath, a widower, married Mary Ann Tudor, a widow, in the Register Office of Manchester South on 20 July 1925. Just eight months later they were recorded as being married in the Register Office of Manchester North on 30 March 1926.
I have four marriage certificates that prove that each couple were the same individuals in the first and second marriages, so there is no question that these individuals were different people of the same name.
The father’s two marriages were performed by the same registrar, A Ramsbottom, and he also conducted the first marriage of the son, but not his second. Could there have been anything questionable about the probity/ legality of the first marriages? Kim Leslie, via email
AThis type of “double marriage” mystery does occur occasionally – the air ace Sir Douglas Bader being a well-known example. GRO rules allow a religious wedding after a civil ceremony, but that wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) be registered separately and isn’t the case here.
A couple giving notice to a registrar before a wedding have to confirm they are “free to marry” so they can’t just marry again without lying about their status or there being a reason why the first marriage was invalid.
Sometimes looking at the witnesses to the marriage may give a hint at what happened. Were they family members? Was the first marriage conducted quietly and then restaged for the benefit of the family? Or was the second marriage held to secretly correct a problem with the first?
Both these weddings involve widows and widowers so was there some doubt that a previous partner was dead? You should look closely at the marital history of all those involved and confirm the dates of death of each partner.
The first marriage of Francis Arthur Leath to Jemima Tench was in 1884, yet the GRO index suggests their child Ernest Arthur was registered in 1881 as the child of a married couple, so there may be some history of misleading registrars!
If the registrar sought advice from the Registrar General then their correspondence may survive in local archives or at The National Archives (in series RG48) but these are not usually catalogued by name. Antony Marr