Genealogy Chat

Was it common for people to get married in their teen years in the 1830s and 40s? It's just that my ancestors were born in the early 1820s but I've searched from 1837 to the early 1840s when they started having children (1851 census puts the children as being born in 1841 and 1843) and I can't find any record of a marriage. Now they could have been married pre september 1837 but that would make him 15 and her 14 which would have been unlikely wouldn't it? Any suggestions?

It was legal until about 1929 for girls to marry at 12 and boys at 14. BUT from what I have found in my own and my husband's family trees, 16 is the earliest age for a girl and 19 for a boy to marry at any particular time and both were rare. Most couples married in their early 20s to mid-30s, generally when they had either begun a family or had saved enough money to set up their own home. nell

Unlikely but not impossible. Age for marriage in those days was 12 for girls and 14 for boys (with parental consent if under 21), although I don't expect many actually did get married this young. It's more likely that they were just missed of the index (it probably wasn't quite so regulated at the start of registration), or that you have just missed it. Have you looked for several years after the children were born as the marriage was often delayed until then? Kath. x

Delayed until after the children were born? interesting! So they didn't have shot gun weddings in those days then?

It would certainly be unusual to marry so young. Possible alternatives are that 1. the bride married as a young widow 2. they married less than 9 months before, or even considerably after, the birth of the first child 3. they never married at all

Was it unusual for people not to marry in those days then? Was due to lack of money etc or was it just a cultural thing that she just started living with him and took his name?

Have you searched the indexes under both the bride and grooms name. I have found instances where the marriage is registered under one of the names but not the other (although it should be indexed under both names). I think living together went on just as much then as it does now, although perhaps not quite so openly. Kath. x

Shotgun weddings only happen if there is someone to wield a shotgun. Everyone knows your business in a village, so a couple living together would not be described as married when they weren't. In a city, you can move a few streets away and be in another parish. The authorities will only get nosy if you fall upon hard times. It was only when we found a friend's ancestor being admitted to the workhouse that we discovered her marriage had taken place on her eldest son's second birthday.

Are you calculating the parents' dates of birth from the census, or have you found their baptisms in parish records? Because it could just be that they knocked a few years off their ages for the census. Have you found them on the 1841 census yet? Kate.

thank you all for your help. I never thought to look later than the children were born but hey presto there they are in 1849 the little minxes!! Their youngest would have been 6 by then and the eldest 8! I haven't looked on the 1841 census. Can you get the 1841 census online then? It's just that I can't get to family history centres when they're open because I work full time. I have a subscription to Ancestry but they don't have the 1841

No, the 1841 isn't on ancestry yet. Some counties are available on British Origins and some on The Genealogist. Do you have the birth certificate of any of the children born pre-1849? If not, could it be that the wife in 1851 is actually his second wife? Perhaps the earlier children had a different mother? Kate.

I'm sure the youngest was the bride's child at least because the bride's name was Grace Frow and the daughter is listed as Margaret Frow Bell (father Isaac Bell)