Family Historian User Group

Help! I'm going nuts. At any time were male members of the Wesleyan religion allowed to have more than one wife. I have an ancestor who appears as the father of 8 children over a 18 year period but there are 3 different mother's listed. Youngest child born 1811, eldest born 1829...so far!
I can find the register for the marriage of the mother of the child born in 1811, but no register for the other 2 mothers.
He seems to have had 3 chidren by wife No.1, 3 by wife No.2 and 2 by wife No.3. All birth dates are mixed up, first 2 by wife No.1, then 1 by wife No.2, then 1 by wife No.3 3rd by wife No.1 and then 2 by wife No.2 and last by wife No.3. [confused] [eek]

ID:2370

Is it possible that the children were all by the same wife but that she was known by different names?

Are the names of the three mothers diminutives of the same name - Peggy, Margaret, Meg for example?  This example is rather obvious but I think other diminutives / nick names are not so obvious Mary / Minnie for example.

Just a thought.

margarita

Names are Mary, Elizabeth and Ann

Well, it was a good idea while it lasted.

margarita

That is: Mary Kingston, Elizabeth Kingston and Ann Stevens.....Weird !

Are you sure it is the same man? Could he have had a cousin with the same name who was having children at the same time? Remember marriages usually took place in the bride's parish so perhaps you need to look further afield.

Irene B

Have you got a selection of the children's birth certificates? A wesleyan minister would most certainly not have had more than one wife. If that was his sole occupation the birth certificates would show if it was the same man. (Unless he had a cousin of the same name and occ!!)

I have a Wesleyan minister connected to my tree and he has children in several different towns as he moved 'parishes' (don't know what methodists call them!) They all appear to have the same mother though!

Also bear in mind that a Wesleyan preacher (as opposed to a minister) may have not been doing that as his main occupation.

Anne

The Victorian tradition of naming children after their grandparents means is surprisingly common to have cousins of the same name born about the same time and place. My guess is you have more than one father there.

In Peter Christian's book The Genealogist's Internet he mentioned one of the pay sites would let you search for all births registered by the same parents. I haven't tried this yet so I can't remember if it was FindMyPast.com or one of the others. If I can find my copy of the book I'll come back and post more information.

This would yield similar results to gathering all the certificates to the children and comparing them.

Christian's page with the list of links in the book is here:

http://www.spub.co.uk/tgi3/links.php

Jan