Was the lady a bigamist?

[Raymond M]

A great aunt in my family tree initially married a bachelor in 1900 in Hampshire. There were no children from this marriage. In the 1911 census I couldn’t find her via her married name. However her husband is in the census but now living with another lady in Hampshire, although not married to the latter.

I have discovered that this great aunt sailed to New York in mid-1902 preceded three months earlier by an English bachelor. They married in New York State within weeks of her arrival. They then sailed back to England six months later and set up home in Devon. There were no children from this marriage and they remained in England thereafter.

She had sailed to New York and married using her maiden name. In the marriage register she declared her parents’ details which identified her to me.

I can find no record of any UK divorce for this great aunt or her first husband. So am I correct in saying she was a bigamist or did marrying in the USA change things?
Ray

[shume]

Similar thing happened in my family.. great uncle left wife and 4 chn in England,sailed to Canada, wrote loving letters home and then married another woman bigamously. So yes, its possible.

[Megan Roberts]

If there was no divorce anywhere in the World, then any other marriage would be bigamous.

[Lesley Robertson]

Divorce, except for the rich, was very difficult back then. Bigamy, as the “poor man’s divorce” was not rare. It looks as though this was carefully planned.
Was she living with number 1 in the 1901?

[stepives]

There is a general assupmtion, that divorce never happened to the 'lower classes'. This assumption os wrong.

If both parties conspire/want/need, to get divorced, then it can be done relativley quietly, and somewhat cheaper. There will usually be very little of a paper rail, due to the decision of the Court could be done without the need of a 'Grand epsosure'. All it required was a Judges verdict, and authorization for the divorce to be finalised.
It needed, one or the other complainants to admit to being the guilty party, and the circumstamces of the sace to be verified by a witnesses affidavit.

If a divorce is contested with vigour, then it will generally get noticed and will quite often reach the newspaper columns.

Not knowing where the divorce happened, it will be hard, if not impossible to find the actual case notes, if they still exist.

On the other hand, they could well have been Bigamists. As there appears to be no issue, it's remanis a 'juicy tit bit.'

[Megan Roberts]

It is also true to say that there were a lot more divorces in the USA, or at so it seems to me from the little bit of research that I have done there ..... or maybe its just the people that I was looking at seemed to get divorced.

But on a serious note, could they have gone to America, got divorced and then remarried? American marriage certificates vary from State to State, but they usually ask whether or not people have been married before. However, there is no guarantee that they are any more accurate than ours are. Read my post No. 6 on this thread: https://www.british-genealogy.com/th...ghlight=bigamy

[Raymond M]

Divorce, except for the rich, was very difficult back then. Bigamy, as the “poor man’s divorce” was not rare. It looks as though this was carefully planned.
Was she living with number 1 in the 1901?

Hi Lesley, yes she was living with husband no.1 on the 1901 census. They had married at Xmas 1899.
Things could move much faster in Victorian times than we might imagine.
Ray

[Raymond M]

Hi Megan, your Mary Baldock certainly puts my gt aunt well into the shade. The NY register marriage transcription came out of Family Search via FMP and there is no field for the 'status' of the marriage couple. The lady was never spoken of in the family and she was not a beneficiary in her father's estate in the later years. I'll have a search round in US divorces but given she used her maiden name on her second marriage she probably declared herself single.
Ray

[Lesley Robertson]

I remember an episode of Who Do You Think You Are featuring Bruce Forsyth where one of his male ancestors married and had kids i the UK, then headed for the USA and married again, also with kids. He became quite well-known as a garden designer (director?)/ He continued to write to wife 1 and whenever he visited the UK, went home to her and those kids....

[Ladkyis]

I have a great uncle who married three times, withiut divorcing or ending the previous marriages. After marriage 2 he went back to sea, working as a steward and was "Lost at sea" when actually what he did was move across England, become a film projectionist and marry wife number three. He then emigrated to USA taking wife 3 with him and he lived there from 1925 until he died in the early 1950s.
Happy to welcome you into the "Related-to-a-bigamist club" We have three of them in our ancestral trees