Does anyone know much about family history research?

Question

I have done quite a lot and managed to get some branches of my fathers materal family back to 1798.
The problem I have is that it seems that one women in the family (born 1852) seems to over three decades/census,lived with at least two men. I'm pretty sure it is the same woman because a lot of other details match including childrens names(which are quite unusual)
Was this common practice in the days before divorce.

My ancestors were not wealthy and seemed to mostly work in the mills around Derbyshire

I know the original husband was still alive and living with one of the children( every thing ties up even his occupation ) thats how I know she wasn't widowed and yes she did assume the name of the men she was living with but the children had their original names.
Also by this time he( the original husband) was living with another (who had taken his name)

No it doesn't really matter to my research but I just wanted to know if Thing like that happened.

Answer 1

It's not terribly uncommon. Despite the cries of today's immortality - divorce, abandonment, illegitimacy and adultery have been around for a very long time.

This said, your question is a bit unclear. Does your presumed ancestor have the same last name as the man she's living with at the time - if so, she's probably just re-married (nothing unusual about that at all).

What about the children - depending on the census taker, I've seen step-children enumerated with the step-father's surname and the original father's surname (and it seems to change in each census :)

Lastly, don't assume your ancestor was necc. involved in any funny business. Not all the U.K. census give the relationship between the people enumerated - it could just be a boarder or apartment-type situation. Especially if your ancestor was a mill worker, they were unlikely to have had the luxury of a home of their own and could have just been sharing space with another family - perhaps related, perhaps just friends.

I saw this with one of my ancestors - her husband (a working class man) died in 1852 and in the 1861 and 1871 census, she's living in different places in Bethnal Green (in London's East End) with different people, including other families, singles, other widows, etc. I'm sure it was not a particularly nice place given the general poverty of the East End back in those days, when people had to do what they have to do to survive.

Answer 2

You seem to be assuming that because she lived with two different men during the various census years that she must have divorced one guy and married another. Unless you know that the first husband was still alive as well, that is a very dangerous assumption to make. It is far more likely that husband number one died fairly young in his thirties or fourties and she had to go out and marry husband number two. There was no time for sentimentality in those days - no welfare state, no pension and no other financial help, so a widowed woman would have needed to get over her husbands death very quickly and marry again in order to keep her and her children in the manner to which they are accustomed. It happened a lot. Quite a lot of my ancestors married twice - no less than two widowed men married sisters of their deceased wife (!!), and quite a few married two seperate women with the same first name. You'll need to be a lot more flexible in your interpretation of the facts or you won't get anywhere with your tree at all.

Answer 3

Was she ever married to one of the men? Could the first husband have died and she moved in with the other as a housekeeper? What is her occupation shown as in the census?
Otherwise, I think its a;most certain that she left one man for the other - these were the days when divorce was almost impossible for ordinary wokring people. Although we see the Victorians as very straight-laced, this may have been so for the upper clasees, but I'm sure the working class people did not have the same ways of living.

Answer 4

I really don't see much of a problem. You are able to track the migration of the lady and the children and that is what is important. The second man or if there were a dozen of them doesn't change the bloodline unless she had subsequent children wih the various men.

Don't let this bother you. You are luckier than alot of people who can't find their deceased relatives on censuses anywhere. Pat yourself on the back. You are doing good!

Answer 5

email my dad as he has been studying his family history for years now and knows loads..if u want his email addy let me know!!