Quite often when researching your family tree you should look at why people got together to make sure you have the right ancestor.
Many people were named after prominent people and therefore there were a lot of the same names - especially in the past centuries. Parents named their children after:
Kings and queens:
William
Mary
James
Charles
Religious names:
Joseph
Rebecca
Mary
First born male William
The best bit about these names is that they get used for successive generations in a certain order.
First born male named after the father
Second born male named after the grandfather or, if it’s the same as the father, the mother’s grandfather.
The bad part is not concentrating fully, and getting them mixed up.
Most people didn't travel in the 18th and 19th centuries and so, if all of a sudden you have your great great grandfather married to someone from 100 miles away, you really need to ask how they met. It certainly wasn't in a night club or at a rock gig.
In my family, the marriages often took place within families from the same street or at least the same village.
Back to my problem.
My great great grandfather Samuel, born 1837 in a very small village in Nottinghamshire, married someone from Cheltenham in 1864. A distance of around 120 miles in a time when the roads were tracks and the transport was often Shank’s pony (walking).
I have been trying to work out how people living 120 miles apart even met.
I have looked at their work situation. Samuel worked at as a Frame Work Knitter (a poorly paid position and therefore, not much there to attract a wife)
Emily, in 1861, worked in Cheltenham as a servant for a local family.
They were still in the Cheltenham area in 1871 and so were Emily's family.
Then I found it!
Samuel's cousin William, from the next village, married someone from Cheltenham the year before. Emily is a close relation to William’s wife.
It is more than likely that Samuel went to the wedding and met Emily there.
Now all I need to do is find out how Samuel's cousin William met his wife from 120 miles away.
That's for a future post.
