Bigamy

[tulipoo]

Are there any lists of persons involved in bigamous marriages.
Period I am concerned with would be 1940's.
Ian

[Olde Crone Holden]

I have never heard of such a list. Local newspapers would be the best way of tracking bigamy down, I would think.

OC

[Anne in Carlisle]

Of course, if no-one found out they wouldn't be on a list. In the 1940s people were even more mobile than they had been due to the War and many may never have been found out. You did not (and still don't I believe) have to prove you were eligible to marry. The reading of Banns was supposed to provide some check .... but if no-one knew they couple who could say .... ??

anne

[tulipoo]

Thanks OC and Anne.
Ian

[Mbrady]

I had a Grandad that was sent to jail (supposedly) between 1944 and 1955 for Bigamy...

Its a huge family scandal, and people are still arguing over whether it actually happened or not!

I would love to be able to tell them the truth..but would also love to know myself..

Anyone know where I could start with that?

[dermotdjt]

If he married both times under the same name, could you obtain both marriage certificates

[Janet in Yorkshire]

Well firstly you need find to find 2 marriages for him. (Someone claimed there was a bigamist in my tree, with a clandestine second marriage. As far as I can see, the alleged bigamist never married once, let alone twice. No court case, nothing in the newspaper. He was a commercial traveller and I suspect he operated out of two homes and eventually got caught out. However that made him a philanderer, not a bigamist, and he wasn't breaking the law.)

I do have a bigamist - my man had a very unusual forename & also surname - there are two GRO entries for him in the index. The first was a church wedding, no children; about 12 months later there was a second marriage, in a registry office, with the groom marrying as a bachelor. Wife number one seemed to go back to the village of her father, where she died and was buried about five years later. No-one reported my man.

It's only bigamy if you marry whilst you still have a living spouse; setting up home as Mr & Mrs isn't against the law.

Jay

[Mbrady]

Hi, and thanks for replying. I have all three wedding certificates and there is definitely something fishy going on as he's declared himself a Bachelor twice.

It was the third wife (Mary Callaghan) that told my mother he committed bigamy and done time for it. But Mary is long gone now 1980, and so is he...1959.

Wedding 1: 1930, Thomas Brady (Bachelor) + Annie Humble (Widow), Carlisle Registry Office (50 miles from usual address). They lied about their ages, He added 3 years, she took off 6 years.

Wedding 2: 1933, Thomas Brady (Bachelor) + Nancy Bell (Spinster), Newcastle Registry Office. He gives his real age on this one which is one year less that his previous marriage.

Wedding 3: 1944, Thomas Brady (Divorced husband of Annie Humble, formerly Conroy) + Mary Callaghan (Spinster) Newcastle Registry Office, real ages given..

I'm 100% on all the details of these marriages....been researching them for a while. He was born and died in Newcastle Upon Tyne...


Anyone any ideas?

[margaretmarch]

Hi, and thanks for replying. I have all three wedding certificates and there is definitely something fishy going on as he's declared himself a Bachelor twice.

It was the third wife (Mary Callaghan) that told my mother he committed bigamy and done time for it. But Mary is long gone now 1980, and so is he...1959.

Wedding 1: 1930, Thomas Brady (Bachelor) + Annie Humble (Widow), Carlisle Registry Office (50 miles from usual address). They lied about their ages, He added 3 years, she took off 6 years.

Wedding 2: 1933, Thomas Brady (Bachelor) + Nancy Bell (Spinster), Newcastle Registry Office. He gives his real age on this one which is one year less that his previous marriage.

Wedding 3: 1944, Thomas Brady (Divorced husband of Annie Humble, formerly Conroy) + Mary Callaghan (Spinster) Newcastle Registry Office, real ages given..

I'm 100% on all the details of these marriages....been researching them for a while. He was born and died in Newcastle Upon Tyne...


Anyone any ideas?

Well all that could be above board in that he was divorced from first wife but just said he was a batchelor to second wife. It could have depended on the question asked of him.

Do you know what happened to wife number 2 ? if she died and he could have said widower but for some reason didn't mention that marriage and simply told the facts ref wife number 1 when he married number 3.

Might be worth checking the Newcastle newspapers as something like being sent to prison for bigamy would have been of interest to people. You need to know when it was discovered to check the papers.

Margaret

[Olde Crone Holden]

In THEORY, haha, if bigamy was proved in a court of law and he did time for it, you should not be able to get a copy of the bigamous marriage cert as the GRO are supposed to suppress it. However, there are a lot of steps in this process and quite often the GRO is not informed of the bigamy.

OC

[Ann Bentley]

My great, great uncle Thomas Gillan married Mary McVey in 1868 in Paisley, Scotland and they had two sons. He then married Margaret Buchanan in 1873, without benefit of divorce (or Mary's death) and had a daughter and son. A notation was put on the second certificate, (I can't remember what it was called but it did have a name) to say it was nullified, and I do believe he served a prison sentence for that. I next picked him up in Australia with Margaret and their children, where they lived together for the next thirty odd years. He died in Sydney in 1914. As far as I know, they were never legally married, but they seem to have stuck together all the same. My point is, the certificate was available. Maybe that is just in Scotland???

[Mbrady]

I've done a bit of research on this and apparently, even if the marriage was annulled certificates are still sometimes issued?.......but you can't become a bachelor twice.

Only when the previous marriage is struck off for underage or something.....here is my theory.

Marriage 1, she is quite a bit older than him, 23-32....lied about their age for social acceptance. Within 3 years...

Marriage 2, finds a younger model (only 19) who I know is already 5 months pregnant. Rush marriage. she never hung around for long, 3 years max, no one knows what happened to her?...

Marriage 3, by this time marriage number 1 divorce came through. Declared this on his certificate and said nothing about the disappeared bride number 2...

haha, I'm just speculating of course. I've been in touch with the local archives place, waiting for a reply, because surely if he got done for bigamy it will be recorded somewhere, hopefully!!

mb

[LeicestershireLass]

Copies of decree absolute (1858-present) can be obtained from the National Archives.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/r...on/divorce.htm

[margaretmarch]

I've done a bit of research on this and apparently, even if the marriage was annulled certificates are still sometimes issued?.......but you can't become a bachelor twice.

Only when the previous marriage is struck off for underage or something.....here is my theory.

Marriage 1, she is quite a bit older than him, 23-32....lied about their age for social acceptance. Within 3 years...

Marriage 2, finds a younger model (only 19) who I know is already 5 months pregnant. Rush marriage. she never hung around for long, 3 years max, no one knows what happened to her?...

Marriage 3, by this time marriage number 1 divorce came through. Declared this on his certificate and said nothing about the disappeared bride number 2...

haha, I'm just speculating of course. I've been in touch with the local archives place, waiting for a reply, because surely if he got done for bigamy it will be recorded somewhere, hopefully!!

mb

True that something would be recorded somewhere about a a prison sentence but whether you could access that record is another matter - the papers are the best option as it would have been scandalous.

Might be worth looking for wife no2 or the child to see what happened to them.

Whilst technically someone can't be a batchelor more than once, people describe their status as they see fit on any given occasion.

Margaret

[Mbrady]

True that something would be recorded somewhere about a a prison sentence but whether you could access that record is another matter - the papers are the best option as it would have been scandalous.

Might be worth looking for wife no2 or the child to see what happened to them.

Whilst technically someone can't be a batchelor more than once, people describe their status as they see fit on any given occasion.

Margaret

Hmmm that is a very good point...

I'm in touch with marriage number 2 child, he is 81 now and he never knew his mother she left when he was a baby. Very sad I know...but who knows what happened?

I dont a quick searchLeicesterlass, didnt come up with anything.

I think you guys are right about papers and stuff, I've done searches on available papers online with no results, but the main Evening Chronicle for Newcastle hasnt been digitised yet. So i'll probably have to wait.

With a span between 1944 and 1955 without a a fixed date, scanning microfilms would be impossible unless it was front page news of course

[Olde Crone Holden]

Ann - English law and Scottish registration laws are different and as far as I know, Scottish certificates are never suppressed, whereas they OUGHT to be in England (but quite often aren't, owing to some kind of inefficiency somewhere in the system). However, if an English marriage cert has been proved to be fraudulent by virtue of bigamy then it will not be issued (it might still appear in indexes of course because the GRO has no ability to suppress the many different copies of the indexes, but an application for a suppressed cert will result in the information that the GRO "are unable to supply this certificate").

Actually, you CAN legally be a bachelor or spinster twice. If your first marriage is annulled, then you become bachelor or spinster again because you have never been married. And as Margaret says, you can describe your status however you see fit. No one ever checked.


Scanning ten years of newspapers is not impossible, it is mere child's play, lol and will get you into good training for scanning hundreds of years of parish registers written in invisible ink on tablecloths upside down!

OC

[Janet]

Hm my Grandmother managed to be a spinster twice! She first married in London in 1898 and was down as a spinster and then was no longer living with him, but with someone else by 1901. She had 4 children from 1901 to 1910, calling herself married and down as married on all the children's birth certificates and the census of 1901 and 1911 to the person she was living with. She eventually married the father of the 4 children, who was the man she was living with from 1901, in 1923 calling herself a spinster at this time! A newspaper report of 1929 cast doubt on the legality of the marriage!! I am not surprised, though I have never found any case of bigamy being brought against her. I have never found the first husband on a census nor hav e I found his death with any satisfaction though there are a few tenuous clues but nothing definite. I think there was more of this sort of behaviour around in the Victorian era than is given credit for!!
Janet

[margaretmarch]

Hm my Grandmother managed to be a spinster twice! She first married in London in 1898 and was down as a spinster and then was no longer living with him, but with someone else by 1901. She had 4 children from 1901 to 1910, calling herself married and down as married on all the children's birth certificates and the census of 1901 and 1911 to the person she was living with. She eventually married the father of the 4 children, who was the man she was living with from 1901, in 1923 calling herself a spinster at this time! A newspaper report of 1929 cast doubt on the legality of the marriage!! I am not surprised, though I have never found any case of bigamy being brought against her. I have never found the first husband on a census nor hav e I found his death with any satisfaction though there are a few tenuous clues but nothing definite. I think there was more of this sort of behaviour around in the Victorian era than is given credit for!!
Janet

They were good at keeping things under wraps LOL no facebook or google then remember!!
Margaret

[margaretmarch]

Scanning ten years of newspapers is not impossible, it is mere child's play, lol and will get you into good training for scanning hundreds of years of parish registers written in invisible ink on tablecloths upside down!
OC

ROFL!! having done a very small amount of this I love your description - it fits perfectly with what I found!

Margaret

[modem]

No Legal Aid in those days and divorce was difficult for us ordinary folk so expect there was quite a lot of bigamy about. However, there must have been a change because my greatgrandfather had his divorce (just after WW1) paid for as a "poor person". My greatgrandmother had moved back to live with her parents with an illegitmate son. She finally married the father in 1925 and my grandfather and great aunt lived with them and their half brother. I only found out about it through my research. No-one talked about it when I was young even though the half brother and his wife were part of the family circle!