An ancestor of mine was married four times. Little is known about her origins in Germany or those of her first husband (from whom I descend). Her third husband’s Germanic origins are well-documented. He appears to have been someone she met after having been in the United States for some time and not someone with whom she shared a connection “across the pond.”
Then there’s the second “husband.” Little research has been done on him, but it’s known she started a relationship with him within a few months of her first husband’s death in 1855, that her marriage to him was not a legal one, and that their relationship ended a few months after he was declared guardian for her children in the spring of 1856.
Is it possible he’s someone she knew from back home? Is it possible she knew him when she lived in Cincinnati for a few years in the late 1840s before her marriage and before moving to Illinois? She may have only met him after her first husband died. But it’s possible by researching him that I may learn something about her.
Don’t neglect those short terms marriages or relationships your ancestor had. They could contain the clues for which you are looking.
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