Double Marriages???

[WhiteWolf]

Hi Everybody

Ok I have a problem, maybe!

I have a marriage of Hannah Hidlam Hutchinson to a Robert Moss on 12 May 1839 @ St Nicholas Church, Liverpool. Fathers being William Moss and Edward Hutchinson.

But a week earlier I have another marriage of Hannah Hutchinson to Robert Moss at the Catholic Church of St. Patricks, Liverpool.

Both Marriages have William Smith as a witness, though the other witness is different.

Would they have been married twice if one of the parties were Catholic?

Now according to both their address' they lived Right between the two churchs

Can anyone shed an light on this for us?

Regards

Andy

[Colin Moretti]

Hello Andy

I have an example from 1852 of the same situation and again one ceremony was in a CoE church, the other RC; with my example, however, both ceremonies occurred on the same day. No doubt the double ceremony was to satisfy the families of each religious persuasion.

Barbara Dixon, in her book on marriage certificates (but not, I think, on her web site), notes that

It was quite legal from 1837 onwards for a couple to have two marriages in two different locations on the same day

but then she continues:

More puzzling are the double marriages where a couple have married once, and then the same couple have married again anything from a few weeks to several years later. This may be because there was something legally not correct with the first marriage...

It is also legally possible - though not advisable - for the same couple to marry one another again even where they have not been divorced from one another and the first marriage was perfectly legal.

On her website she does offer to answer queries about certificates but you should refer to the site first
www.
dixons.clara.co.uk/Certificates/bmdemail.htm

Colin

[Pam Downes]

Hi Andy,
I've seen an example in 1864 in Lincolnshire where a couple married either on the same day or two days apart (the RC record is on a fiche which in places leaves a lot to be desired, the CofE record is legible).
There's another record in 1865 where a couple married on the same day and although the bride gave herself two extra forenames in the RC church the father's names are the same.
I had only an index to check, so wasn't able to compare signatures, occupations, addresses, or witnesses.

Have you got the actual certificates from the two churches? If all the 'main' details (name bride/groom, addresses, father's names and occupations) agree, then it's obviously the same couple but both insisting on being married in their own church.

Pam

[Colin Rowledge]

Could be an expensive wedding - 2 sets of clergy, families running around between churches etc. - hope the reception wasn't held twice!!

Did they stay married?

[Jan1954]

As recently as 7 years ago, my niece and her chap had 2 services: one CofE and the other Greek Orthodox. This was so that the marriage was recognised by both of their respective religions. My Gran (CofE), on the other hand, married my Grandfather (Catholic) in 1929 in a registry office....

[Colin Rowledge]

My wife and I only had one ceremony - for me once was enough. She was Catholic, I was Methodist, we were married in a United church. Why this one? - it was within a 5 minute walk of where she lived, the vicar had married off her best friend a year earlier and when we met him a few weeks before our wedding, he surprised me - as neither of us were of his denonmination or Church or likely to be a member in the future - he insisted that we refere to him as Jimmy which was his 1st name.

A wonderful bloke, sadly now deceased.

Colin

[WhiteWolf]

Hi everybody

Thanks for the replies.

Pam
No certificates, Only found it on Ancestry this afternoon.

Colin
Yes we think so, we’ve found no evidence of a divorce and they had at least 11 children together.

As an aside, we’ve found that some of the Children were baptised in a Catholic Church whilst others were baptised in a CofE Church.

What this means is that we are now re-checking records of those we couldn’t find. We were positive that this line of the family were ALL CofE. That will teach us

Regards

Andy