?arranged marriage & emigration???

[charlie64]

Shortly after the execution of Charles I my ancestor, Thomas Sprigg, came to the eastern shore of Virginia. When he got here (probably late in 1650) he had just turned 21. By March of 1651 he was married. His wife was a widow, Catherine Roper. Her late husband, William Roper, had been a major player in the county government and her father, Thomas Graves, was a member of the original London Company. Catherine's sister, Verlinda, at the time of Catherine's marriage to Sprigg, was married to William Stone, the then sitting governor of Maryland. Thomas Sprigg had to sign a pre-nuptial agreement with his new spouse, to the effect that he would make no claim on the estate of her child by Roper. Then they were married. Catherine was about 15 years older than Sprigg. So I have a question. Was this marriage "arranged" or was Sprigg just lucky? Am I reading more into this than is there? It strikes me as odd that some 21 year old kid from England would just step off the boat in Virginia and marry a wealthy widow 15 years older than he whose sister was the wife of a sitting governor. I thought I had read that women were in short supply in Virginia but I didn't think men were. I might add that I have not found any evidence of Sprigg doing any kind of indentured service for his passage. Can anyone offer an opinion on this from the British perspective? If this was an arrangement is there likely a record of it (or him) in the U.K.? Was such a thing done?

Thanks in advance

Charlie

[christanel]

Hi
Reading This it seems he wasn't just some "twenty year old kid from England" but one of the British gentry living in the time of the English Civil Wars, and was one of thousands who colonized America'

It makes very interesting reading and not just about Thomas.

Christina

[charlie64]

Wow, Christanel - I completely forgot that I posted that all those years ago. Interesting? Not sure. Accurate? Even less sure. I wrote it as an e-mail about ten years ago and at that time I did not know what I was talking about.


SOME CORRECTIONS FOR THE ENGLISH ANCESTRY OF MARYLAND THOMAS SPRIGG

I should not have said this - it is not confirmed:
"The confirmed record of the Sprigg family of Maryland and West Virginia begins with the 1690 will of John Sprigg of Great Bowden, Leicester, which is on the Northamptonshire border."

I should not have said this:
"These connections account for Lt. Col. Thomas Sprigg Jr., son of the immigrant, naming sons Edward Sprigg and Osborn Sprigg"

It turns out that Thomas Junior married the daughter of EDWARD Mariarte and Edward's wife's maiden name is not known. SHE could be the Osborn.

I should not have said this:
" Part of this fighting took place in Northamptonshire...... The general population of the shire was overwhelmingly Parliamentarian and it may be that Maryland Thomas left (he being a Cavalier) for that reason."

I have since learned that there was no place in the UK "overwhelmingly Parliamentarian" and that families were split, some people switched sides, in short it reminds me of our American Civil War. I didn't know that when I wrote that.

I should not have said this:
"Some speculations can be made however. He MIGHT be the Thomas Sprigg who was "absent abroad" in the 1649 estate record of John Andrews of London."

I have since eliminated this other Thomas Sprigg, he died on Barbados right after mine got here.

It was raw notes and was not checked with anyone well versed in the UK and the culture. I know better now, to ask first. Not long after I wrote that I dropped genealogy to keep up with 21st century matters. Now I have picked it up again and want to actually learn more about what I thought I knew then. I would love to have anybody with better knowledge of the UK to look at it, critique it, and pick it apart, find flaws, etc.... I joined here to learn. When I wrote that I thought I knew something - but I know better now how much I didn't know then.....

My question stands - did arranged marriages happen in reality or only in my imagination?

[christanel]

Hi
I should have looked to see who wrote that piece!

Yes marriages were certainly arranged to benefit both parties. You know what Catherine Roper brought to the marriage -prestige and connections but what did Thomas Sprigg offer? Connections back in England? Compliance, Congeniality, vigour, ambition, energy. Do you have anything on his parentage?

Christina

[Lesley Robertson]

They were a lot more pragmatic back then, and parents with small children (especially men of course, but not always) often seem to have remarried quite quickly... Of course, if she was a rich widow, marrying a decent man would have kept the rest of the horde pestering her to become their (rich) wife away.....