Intermarrying.

[Asa]

It doesn't happen like that in the Archers does it :s

[Merry]

lol Asa!

[Olde Crone]

Merry

I always have this vision of the farmer's son shouting out to the village girls "Right, who's first?"

My 2 x GGF appears to have put two to the trials and married the one who had the first son. As it turned out, he backed the loser because every child he had with his wife was dead before they reached the age of five, whereas 2 x GGM had four healthy sons.

OC

[Guinevere]

Nearly all my Suffolk ancestors have the mothers' maiden names as middle names. It's very useful and helps to sort out marriages pre-registration. They also followed the local traditional naming pattern quite strictly which was also very useful.

However as the 19th C drew to a close they threw caution to the wind and called later children whatever took their fancy - after naming two after themselves, of course.

[Piwacket]

All my maternal side is Scottish and rather than finding the bringing down of surnames as a middle name useful, I find it confusing

There also seems to be a dearth of Christian names! I have Mary Gordon, Mary Fraser, Mary Campbell and on the male side all the first sons, for generations are Alexander right back to 1790s There's Buchanan, Fleming, Mackay, Stuart, Stewart + the ones above all used as middle names - so one way and another I reckon there's a fair scattering of Clans covered.

[anne fraser]

I was always told the Somerset coalminers were a very close knit community and this seems to have been very true even after a lot of the families moved to South Wales. I don't think I have come across any case of a daughter being disowned for having an illegitimate baby. I think in farming communities an extra pair of hands was always useful.

[Nell]

I've a few instances of 2 brothers marrying 2 sisters. There are lots of Brewer marriages in my Cornish branch but I've yet to work out how - if - the various Brewers are connected.

My ex's family provided the most complex marriages though.

His Marsden line has 2 brothers who marry two sisters from the Sellars family. The other 2 Sellars girls marry two Ehn brothers. The widowed Ehn brother then marries a widowed Sellars-Marsden.

He's got a gt x 3 grandfather John Ledger whose 2nd wife Letitia was the aunt of John's son's wife Emily. I had to draw a diagram to work that out!

[Nell]

My gt grandfather Thomas Matthews had 2 brothers Henry and William who married 2 sisters, surname Elsbury on the certs, though they were Aylesbury in the baptism registers. That took a bit of sorting.

My gt grandfather John Smoothy had 2 sisters, Elizabeth and Emily. Elizabeth's daughter Alice married Frank Evans, whose father John Evans took Emily as 2nd wife. I'm not sure how they all met, but Frank is lodging with Alice and her mother in 1911. John & Emily Evans lived next door to John Smoothy for over 20 years.

My ex's family provided the most complex marriages though.

His Marsden line has 2 brothers who marry two sisters from the Sellars family. The other 2 Sellars girls marry two Ehn brothers. The widowed Ehn brother then marries a widowed Sellars-Marsden.

He's got a gt x 3 grandfather John Ledger whose 2nd wife Letitia was the aunt of John's son's wife Emily. I had to draw a diagram to work that out!

[Shona]

Originally Posted by Nell

He's got a gt x 3 grandfather John Ledger whose 2nd wife Letitia was the aunt of John's son's wife Emily. I had to draw a diagram to work that out!

Nope - can't work that out [head spinning and scribbling furiously].

Like the fact you have a Smoothy as a great grandfather!

[JayG]

I've got 2 sisters marrying a father & son, the 3rd sister married the son's cousin, nephew of the father!