marriage to a niece?

[Margaret in Burton]

1881 Thomas Sharratt

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/Browse/view.aspx?dbid=7572&path=Staffordshire.Kingswinford.ALL.10.18

next page Eliza Baker a niece is living with them.

Sept qtr 1881 wife Emma dies.

Jun qtr 1883 Thomas and Eliza get married

1891 Thomas and Eliza as husband and wife

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec?htx=view&r=5538&dbid=6598&iid=STSRG12_2306_2308-0135&fn=Thomas&ln=Sharratt&st=r&ssrc=&pid=26700452

Was it against the law to marry your niece?

I still haven't worked out how she was his niece unless she was his wife's niece of course. Emma's maiden name was Phillips.

[kiterunner]

It was (and still is) illegal to marry your niece and it was illegal to marry your wife's niece up to 1931. But "niece" on the census could be used very loosely!

I've got one in OH's tree who married his wife's niece, though. Particularly dodgy since she had lived with the couple from when she was a child.

[Margaret in Burton]

I'll have to try and work out how she was a niece.

[kiterunner]

There's a likely Eliza Baker on the earlier censuses who is the daughter of Zachariah and Maria, and there is a possible Zachariah Baker / Maria Phillips marriage Sep 1847 Stourbridge.

[kiterunner]

Hmm, and in 1841 there is a family in Kingswinford headed by Wm Phillips 35 with Maria 13 and Emma 9. But it says not born in county for Maria, and Maria Baker is born Kingswinford on the later censuses.

[Margaret in Burton]

Hmm, and in 1841 there is a family in Kingswinford headed by Wm Phillips 35 with Maria 13 and Emma 9. But it says not born in county for Maria, and Maria Baker is born Kingswinford on the later censuses.

That sounds quite possible. It is the border area between Staffs and Worcs, so not being born in the county could be something simple like that.

[Margaret in Burton]

There's a likely Eliza Baker on the earlier censuses who is the daughter of Zachariah and Maria, and there is a possible Zachariah Baker / Maria Phillips marriage Sep 1847 Stourbridge.

That marriage is on the IGI batch M040271

So that looks to be the connection

[Joan of Archives]

Oh yes my great great grandfather married his niece (my great grandmother) making them both my great grandparents & his mother was her mother-in-law & also her grandmother! No wonder I am always so confused :d:d:rolleyes:

[Margaret in Burton]

Oh yes my great great grandfather married his niece (my great grandmother) making them both my great grandparents & his mother was her mother-in-law & also her grandmother! No wonder I am always so confused :d:d:rolleyes:

:confused::confused::confused::confused::D:D:D:D:D

[Sue at the seaside]

I came up with one only yesterday where a man married his dead uncle's wife, thought that was dodgy!

[Asa]

My grandmother's great uncle seems to have married his half-sister's daughter in 1890. Odd stuff.

[tenterfieldjulie]

We had a very respectable old man here, pillar of the church, who had his spinster niece come to housekeep for him, after his wife died .... next thing Uncle married Niecey!!

[Sue at the seaside]

I came up with one only yesterday where a man married his dead uncle's wife, thought that was dodgy!

That meant that these two married with the same surname, Robert Blaker married Clara Blaker

[Uncle John]

I came up with one only yesterday where a man married his dead uncle's wife, thought that was dodgy!

Unusual perhaps, but they weren't blood relatives.