IGI Yes or No!

[Pipeman]

Hi,
For about 3 years I have been trying to trace my 5xG/Gdad. mY 4Xggd Richard Edmondson who married Rebecca Wilkinson in 1773 at Marton in North Yorkshire. Then went to live in Broughton the next village.

I have found no positive pointer to my 5xGGD even having had several Church Record films from my Local LDS Library.So, how much can one accept from the IGI. Thinking on the lines of naming children after Parents, G Parents etc, how much credence can one put on it.

From the top. The License says Richard was, '25 years and upwards' Rebecca 18. So Richard must have been born somewhere in the 1740s! Noting that there were hardly any Edmondsons in the Church Records of Broughton or Marton prior to Richard marrying Rebbeca.
A Joseph E. married in Barnoldswick (6 miles from Marton) in 1728 and had 9 children, a son Richard in 1742
A Joseph was born to Thomas E + Mary Kitching of "Rilston" near Skipton, who's father was Thomas.

Rebecca's father was John Wilkinson who married Rebeccah Croasdall 1745.
John's father was Jonathon W and Rebeccah's father was John C.

With me so far??. Richard my 4xG/Gdad had 3 Sons. John (1774) Richard (1780) Thomas (1782) Who went to live in Rilston (where Thomas Kitching lived!!)

How much of this is possible and how much fanciful

[Lindsay]

I think I'd want more evidence, though it could be an indicator.

Have you tried looking for any Wills to see if you could corroborate it?

[Olde Crone Holden]

It's either 100% right or 100% wrong, unfortunately!

As Lindsay says, you need a will - or possibly a monumental inscription?

Just because this is all you've found doesn't make it right, as you well know! There is more NOT on the internet than there is on the internet.

OC

[Mike Fisher]

Remember it was usual for people to marry in the brides parish and then live in the grooms parish if they from different parish. Under poor law the wife lost her home parish and belonged to the husbands parish on marriage. This meant that if they moved to another parish and needed poor relief they would be returned to the husbands parish. These movement & settlement orders were documented and can be found in the parish chest if they have survived. The parish chest doucuments are sometimes included on the LDS film.

[Janet]

It sounds as though you need a visit to the relevant Yorkshire County Record Office (CRO) You do not say where you are living if that visit is feasible for you? If you are in the Uk then a short break could be one answer but if elsewhere then joining the relevant Family History Society, looking at Free Reg or obtaining CD's for the records of various parishes is going to be required. As has beeen said previously, marriages often took place in the bride's parish and then moved to the husband's parish and certainly mine have led me a merry dance all over Northants/Hunts, where marriages took place in many different parishes. I could only do this work in the relevant Northants and Hunts CRO. Some of it is online through Free Reg, but not all of it by any means and the linking together could only be done at the CRO, where I found marriage Licences, Settlement Certificates and many other documents to prove my tree. A few records are still retained within Parish Chests, but most documents of the ilk of Marriage Licences/Allegations/Bonds, Settlement Certificates/Gameskeepers' Licences/Bailiffs Documents are in the County Record Offices. If you know what you are looking for you can ask a CRO to do a search for you at a modest fee. I recently obtained a 1655 Commonwealth Marriage extract from the records at Hunts CRO showing a marriage took place in a village in Hunts, but the couple came from another village in Northants. I did know exactly what I wanted and they charged £6.50 for a download of a photograph of the entry. I could have got an ordinary copy sent to me for £3.50 but the photographic copy is exquisite and well worth the price for a rare beautifuly written Commonwealth Marriage.

The IGI has never told the full story. I can qote another marriage which took place in Peterborough in 1699 and is on the IGI, but the family never lived in Peterbprough, but 15 miles further South so.....and the children have never been found on the IGI! I could only link that one by finding the marriage licence at Northants CRO showing where they both came from. You need many different sources to link.

Janet

[PhotoFamily]

Mike -
Can you talk more about the parish chest? I've been told the rules/laws for handling the poor changed in the 1800s, and individual churches no longer were responsible for individual parishioners? Do you have a good reference to read?

thanks
Sarah

[Olde Crone Holden]

Sarah

Have you looked in our wiki?

Briefly, the poor laws changed in the 1830s, bringing a standardised nationwide response to poverty, rather than the piecemeal parish-based relief, with the formation of the Union Workhouses. It was a backward step in many ways.

I'm not altogether sure it was "customary" for a bride to marry in her own parish? Normally she would marry in the parish where she was living, unless her own parish was very close by.

OC

[Janet]

OC

I may be inclined to agree with you about it being "customary" or not for the bride to be marrying in her own parish, except for the fact that I have found so many of my brides getting married in parishes in Northants or Hunts, from where they are coming from, and then moving "back" to the village from where the groom came from. Now all these marriages have been Marriage by Licence and the grooms are working for the local gentry, so whether or not this has something to do with it rather than it being "Customary" is I suppose debateable. With so many of mine involved, I cannot dismiss it as mere co-incidence. However, why one couple married at Peterborough Cathedral when they both clearly come from two parishes about 15 miles south is also a mystery to me.

Janet

[kylejustin]

maybthey had to be in peterborough for work for a while.

[Janet]

Kyle justin

Both Groom and Bridegroom were living in parishes 15 miles away, so were not living or working in Peterborough at the time of the marriage in 1699. The marriage licence stated clearly the parishes they were from and it was not Peterborogh, however both families had some standing, and so a marriage in Peterborough Cathedral might have some other symbolic reason which I have yet to discover.

Janet

[Olde Crone Holden]

Janet

for some reason I was thinking of the servant classes (to whom removal/settlement orders would largely apply) rather than the gentry or the settled.

Marriage in the 1700s would have been no big deal to ag labs etc, who would have married locally (to where they were) without fuss and would not have expected their families to take time off work to attend.

I agree that later, say the 1800s, a bride wuld probably have married from her father's house but again that would depend on the circumstances of all concerned I think.

OC

[Pipeman]

Hi All,
Thanks for your offers of Wisdom and advice. I'll try to answer all pionts as a whole rather than to individuals.

Richard my 4xGGdad married Rebecca having placed a £200 Bond to marry her, she was only 18. They married at her family church, where members of her family are recorded for generations. After the marriage they moved 4 miles to where Richard farmed. He rented a farm at "Broughton Hall" Estate for which he paid £180 cash a year rent in 1790. The Estate is still owned by the same family and they invited me up to search their records; so I have copies of Richards accounts. He even paid £40 for a Long Horn bull, So they were not too poor. Rebecca's father John Wilkinson (a Yeoman) jointly with Richard also lent money to other tenant farmers.

I have a Copy of John's Will , and he left several properties to family, Richard, Rebecca and their 3 Sons are all mentioned in the Will.

I can not find a Will or Probate anywhere for Richard, or even when he died. So you can see, I know some of his life after marriage, but not where he's from or 'when he went!
By coincidence, Between Marton where they married and Broughton where they lived, there is still a lane called "Emondson's Lane". I have seen it on a map dated 1774, the year after R + R married. But as I said earlier, there weren't any Edmondsons in the area before the Marriage according to the Church Records I've seen!!

Just as a teaser, Richard's youngest Son Thomas, My 3xGGdad, got married in London. Now how did a farmer's son living in the back woods in North Yorks meet a girl from London. Then go their to get married!! After he married he went to live in Rylstone which happens to be the village 15 miles away where Thomas (the possible Gfather to Richard) came from-if I'm right, but can't prove it!!!

[Olde Crone Holden]

I think it's slightly odd that they married in the bride's parish but a bond of £200 was required for the licence - a massive amount and one which suggests the groom was an unknown quantity, maybe?

As for the will, where have you looked? Yorkshire is a positive pain where wills are concerned, they never seem to be where they ought to be. You might get a clue as to his death if you can find the tenancy agreement.

OC

OC

[Janet]

It is possible to get married in London if the farmer's son was working for a local landowner who had a house in London. For example I have one ancestor who was a groom for the Spencer family in Althorp Northants in the late 1700's. One day he is getting married in London. How did he get to Westminster? Well the answer lay in his Settlement Certificate which showed all his places of employment to include a spell in London at the London home of Earl Spencer. If your ancestor had a more important job such as a Bailiff with the local gentry then he may not have a settlement certificate but other documents may come to light at the CRO. Again I have a bailiff in my own FH in the early 1700's and he is going all over the place with the local gentry, mainly to their other country seats, and his documents as a bailiff were at the Northants CRO. I also found wills at the CRO.

Janet

[Mike Fisher]

The process of the marriage taking place in the brides parish was earlier on in mainly rural areas, in the 1800's there appears to have been churches where families "liked" to get married and used an "address of convenience. My in-laws in the war wanted to get married in a particular church so mother in law gave a friends address and the vicar called in to check she was living there. When I got married we had the choice of my wife's parish church or my parish church and we choose my church as the more picturesque, this was in 1970.
The definitive book on the contents of the parish chest is "The Parish Chest" by W.E.Tate.
I learnt about the "poor law" during a 12 week night school course on family history in the early 90's and was started in 1563 by Elizabeth 1st and ended with the creation of poor law unions in 1832?

[PhotoFamily]

Thanks, Mike!
I need to branch out my research beyond parish BMD records and censuses, but I've been intimidated by it.
sarah

[Pipeman]

Thanks once again ALL for your comments, but alas I don't seem to have much to 'hang my cap on' Though the CRO seems to be on most people's lips. This means a trip to Northalerton I think but is it possible to find out from them, anything to see if it is worth the journey and a night stop over. But if Richard comes from 4 miles West of Marton, its Preston because thats Lancashire!!! BUT No one said that this is an easy hobby, Did They??
O.C.H, As for a Will, I have looked in the places I know of. York Uni. and Nat Archives, on line I know but one has to start somewhere to see if it is worth going deeper. Is there another way or place. I thought I had found Richard's but it was Richard Edmondson, Farmer in Droughton, Skipton not RE, Farmer, Broughton, Skipton! I got His F-in-Law's from Kew without any problem I found it on line.
It looks like,' back to the drawing board!!'

[Olde Crone Holden]

Pipeman

I hope you don't mean you dismissed a Will just because it said Droughton and not Broughton???? I have misunderstood you perhaps.

Yorkshire and Lancashire overlap as far as Wills are concerned and you should cast your net wide. A lot depends on where the estate was originally (i.e. was it historically in Yorkshire, before Lancashire was invented, lol) or which ecclesiastical authority held it - parts of Yorkshire extend into Lancashire, for the purpose of land and estates.

Most County Records Offices have a catalogue on line, so a bit of browsing might bring something up.

OC

[Guy]

I hope nobody is confused about marriage bonds.

£200 was a pretty standard sum for a marriage bonds. The idea was that the sum would be onerous to prevent unlawful marriage.
It was not paid upfront, in fact it would not be paid or enforced unless the marriage was later proved to be unlawful.

The sum involved reflects on the ideals of the parish and has no reflection on the standing of the bondee(s) or his/their ability to pay such a sum.
Cheers
Guy

[Olde Crone Holden]

Thankyou Guy, I hadn't realised it was a standard amount - the few I have were all around the £50 mark.

OC