Curses! Marriage licences received

[Merry]

BK6 updated from this thread

Drat - I don't know what to think now!

I have received the marriage licences from Beds RO for David Smith and Elizabeth Maynard and for John Smith and Mary Maynard. They are nice to have, but don't tell me much - just that everyone was of full age and the occupations of the grooms. That's where I come a cropper as David is down as a farmer and John as a yeoman, but the two couples who seemed to fit exactly from later records were both tailors!

I could accept there might be two (or more) women called Mary who might have married John Smiths from Bedford, but it's not so easy to find a whole lot of men called David Smith who married women called Elizabeth from Kempston around the right time.

The only thing I'm wondering is - my ancestor William Maynard was a yeoman when he died in 1766, and his eldest son inherited property and land but it had all gone by the time the son died in 1820. Would this be anything to do with the enclosures act (which I know nothing about)? Could something similar have happened with any land owned by the Smith family?

[Nell]

The Enclosures Acts enclosed common land which traditionally working people could use to graze their animals on. It didn't affect land owned by individual farmers/yeomen.

Not sure that a yeoman or similar would become a tailor though I can see that might work the other way round - lots of tailors took up other work when their eyesight began to make threading needles and sewing in candlelight difficult. Of course its possible that being a farmer or yeoman would be considered a bit posher than being a tailor and there was some licence over the licence!

[Merry]

Thanks for that re the enclosures act. Sounds as if my lot were just poor managers of what they were given then! lol

I agree about yeoman becoming tailors, but I am finding it really difficult to accept I am looking at the wrong people on the census! Why did they have to be Smiths?

[kiterunner]

And I have to ask, are they the actual marriage licences, or the allegations and / or bonds?

[anne fraser]

I have a copy of an old property deed for Joseph Horne for White Hart Cottage Moreton in Marsh which he bought about 1760 which gives him the right to graze two horned beasts on the common. I can't remember the exact details but he received compensation for this when the common was enclosed. He turned the cottage into an inn and it is still standing. Locally for me a later owner was very interested in the history of the building and wrote an article for it for a local history magazine. It does not answer your question.

[Merry]

And I have to ask, are they the actual marriage licences, or the allegations and / or bonds?

Both! (at least that's how I'm interpreting the bits of paper :)) One sheet has the agreement to marry or forfeit £200, and the other sheet says it is a licence and states the person knows no impediment why they may not marry etc etc.

I can go ito more detail later if you like, but my potatoes will go to soup if I say any more now!

[Uncle John]

my potatoes will go to soup if I say any more now!

Is this a form of liposuction?

[Merry]

If it was, I would be very thin and very rich. :cool:

[Nell]

As the Duchess of Windsor used to say, a woman can never be too thin or too rich.

[Merry]

lol Nell!

I notice both the marriage licences have the grooms swearing on the Holy Evangelist, which was the wording on a probate record I found for someone on this line a while back. I'm still not sure what that signifies? (if anything!)

[Olde Crone]

Means they were noncon, in short.

(Swearing on the Holy Evangelist, rather than the Bible)

OC

[Merry]

So that fits with the non-con birth records for the children who are with my tailoring Smiths in 1841/1851. (see my other thread about BMD Register entries)

So, did a farmer become a tailor?

[kiterunner]

Seems unlikely, doesn't it?

[Merry]

Well it does. But everything else fits! lol

[Lindsay]

Merry, not sure if it helps, but I have a man whose occupation was 'tailor' for all his children's baptisms, yet he's described as a yeoman on his son's marriage cert. From a family diary it's obvious they had a fairly substantial house with orchards etc.

I've been working on the assumption that he did quite well as a tailor and was able to invest in land on the proceeds.

[Merry]

That sounds a lot more sensible, Lesley! It turns out my farmer did become a tailor after all, which I still think is very odd. (see thread about BMD Registers Q)