It can be tempting to think that when one member of a husband-wife couple marries again that the other spouse has died or that there was a divorce. That’s not always the case.
Sometimes couples just separated with no legal arrangements at all. One of them may have up and left or they may have decided to just part company without worrying about legal entanglements. An ancestral couple of mine did just that in New York State in the early 19th century and both of them married again and had children with subsequent spouses. No divorce can be located.
Another ancestor of mine, Clark Sargent, is supposed to have died near Rockford, Illinois, in the 1840s, a year or so before his wife married her second husband. It’s too early for a death record. Despite him owning farmland and having small children, there was no estate settlement or guardianship for his children. His daughter in her Civil War widow’s pension application even suggests that her father might have simply “run off” instead of dying–she also refers to him as a gadabout.
When divorces were more difficult to get and it was easier to move and start a new life, that might be what your relative did.
Don’t assume thought that is what happened. Make certain you have looked into all extant court, property, and other records in the area where the person lived. There may be something that mentions the couple’s separation–like the deed between a relative and his wife in Kentucky in the 1860s that separated their property but stated that they were not technically divorced.
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That about sums it up about my mom’s biological parents and explains her thinking. I found a marriage application but not a license. In one census it gives her mom and all siblings with the mom’s maiden name and states she’s a widow. But I think it was probably a neighbor who knew the grandparents whose house their daughter always lived in. My mom’s youngest sister’s husband said that my mom’s bio dad actually had a wife and kids in a town abt 49 miles away. That family were unaware of my mom’s mother or her 6 kids by him! These small towns in Oklahoma in the early 20th century sometimes made their own rules regardless of legality.
My mom supposedly married at 16, but when she left the farm to work in a WWII factory she didn’t divorce. I asked her why and she answered ‘people didn’t do that back then, and she hadn’t been with him long’ haha I’ve never found a marriage license for her and my dad. He a first generation from New York and her from OK with ancestors having been here from the 1700’s, met in AZ then moved to San Francisco then San Jose, CA. She changed her first name from Goldie Marie to Marie G., leaving OK behind. I finally gave up looking because I really didn’t care.
I also think out of the 6 siblings, she had a different father. He, his parents and grandparents all had blue eyes, as did her mom and her 5 siblings. My mom’s eyes were dark.
Of course there’s not much ancestry on my father, but reading about life on Indian Territory is interesting.
I have a mystery on the opposite end of the marriage/divorce spectrum. My 3x great grandparents supposedly married in 1848 in a county in Kentucky which neither had any affiliation with. He was from another part of KY and she was from TN. It might’ve been a case of a minor’s age. He was 28, she possibly 17 (her actual birthdate not proven). The date and place of the KY marriage was stated on both of their Civil War pension applications and the date was also stated in a sibling’s memoirs. However, the county has no record of the marriage (they do have that year’s records).
Anyway, they went on to have 8 children between 1849 and 1863 having moved to TX by 1856. From the year 1870 on they did not live together again per census records — they each lived seperately with some of the children in the early years and then seperately with one of their grown children’s families in the later years. It remained this way until they died. The weird part — they married “again” in 1876. Why? They were not living together. Their children were grown and gone. They owned nothing of value so property issues were not a concern. It was decades too early to be worried about Confederate pension claims? So strange.
In a word: unusual. It’s possible that they were married by someone without benefit of an actual license in 1848, but I’m inclined to doubt it. I’m not certain of the distance, but travelling a significant distance to marry in 1848 was somewhat unusual–usually it was sufficient to go out of the county, across a “near” state line, or just somewhere nearby where no one knew them. Did anything happen in 1876 that might have precipitated the marriage? As you mention, that was too early to “tie up loose ends” for a pension application.
My 3rd great grandfather, Jacob Wilson Manes, moved his wife, Mary Lawson, and their ever growing family from TN to KY to at least two locations in IN. The story goes that she told him that the move to Owen Co, IN was the last time she was moving. About a year later he left for MO never to return. A year or so later he remarried and had several more children. Mary died in 1851 having never remarried.
That’s the big mystery Michael. Like I said, there was no known property they had acquired. No “legal” reason to explain it. They even lived counties apart in 1876 and for decades after.
As far as KY — George was from Green County, in the middle of the state.
Rebecca was believed to be from Grainger County TN, where she was in 1840 census.
After “marriage”, George and Rebecca were together in Carter County KY in 1850 census with their 2 babies and Rebecca’s brother; and with her parents (working hypothesis) living in same county.
The marriage was in Perry County.
Both Perry and Carter are on east side of state and several counties apart and a long, long way from Green.
George is documented in family records as leaving Green County in 1842 to “go south”, returning for a visit in 1852 (no mention of wife or grandchildren visiting) then leaving for Texas for good in 1856. Obviously, Carter and Perry counties are not “south” of Green and there is no knowledge of where he was from 1842 to 1852, so it is concievable he went east, not south, and met Rebecca there, but it doesn’t explain Perry county for marriage or why there was a 2nd marriage 28 years later.
I feel like there is a real interesting story here. George was the oldest son in a fairly wealthy landowning family with 5 sisters born before the next son (born when George was 13). George, as the eldest son would have inherited everything but yet he chose to not only leave his home at 23 and never return to live there; but also proceeded to live a hardscrabble and relatively impoverished existence the rest of his years. The younger brother inherited everything, became a doctor and lived a prosperous life.