Genealogy Chat

About 3 years ago I discovered that my great aunt (by marriage) travelled to America in August 1915 and married a man from her home city in England (Norwich) the day after arriving there. She then married someone else in 1918, another in January 1919. She then married my great-uncle in November 1919 (!), then married him again in 1920. The weird thing is, my great uncle and she lived in the same road in Norwich before he left to join the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in 1912, so they must have known each other. My uncle moved to America at the end of WW1, and having married Ada, they lived there the rest of their lives. I would love to know how their meeting occurred! I'm not expecting any help, or for anyone else to be interested, but it's bugging me! Marilyn.

Has it been passed down in 'family folklore' to any of her direct descendants - are you in contact with any of them?

I have found the records on Family Search site, and know that there is a son (late 80s now) still living in the same town, Ionia, Michigan. I have been in contact with a distant relative (we shared the same gt-gt-grandfather, but she is from his second marriage line). As I don't know any of them personally, I don't like to upset anyone! From her birth record I see also that she was born in a Workhouse here in Norwich (no father's name) - so she didn't have a very good start!

Are you sure its the right woman??? Have you checked to see if any of the 'husbands' died in WW1 service?

If you can track down any of the espousal military records (assuming they in the Forces), there might be mention of the marriage, or correspondence if any were bigamous. A 'wife' could expect to be allocated part of her 'husbands'' pay.

The CEF was only formed in 1914, i.e., after WW1 began, and first saw active servoce in 1915.
You can search for CEF attestation papers here:
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/search.aspx
Attestation papers show the place of a soldier's birth and the name and addy of his n.o.k., usually a parent. The back shows his medical report - height, weight, scars & tattoos, etc..

There are a small number of digitized service files online.
If you ordered a copy of a service file over the last year, the cost was abt 20p per page (plus postage).
You could save the postage by accepting a digitized record, and these were posted online and were free for later users.
Earlier this year, they decided to digitize and make free all service files, so they're taking blocks of 25% of files, removing them from circulation, and digitizing them.
They're on the first block (A thru D surnames) now, and this block sould be online in 2-3 months. All should be online by the end of 2015.
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/Pages/digitization-cef-service-files.aspx

Here's how to get a free US census image (although for some years - like 1900, 1940, FS give a free link to the image):

I need a real example, so I've chosen this 19930 lookup:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XHNB-W2R

Now the key info in 1930 is:
Event Place: Central, St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Affiliate Film Number: 1225
The rest of the info is in the footer, after the household display
We want:
Household ID: 119 , Line Number: 65
Image Number: 00256
Most other years, the NARA reel # agrees in the last 3 digits with the GS Film number - in 1910, one has to do an FS catalog search of the GS Film number to get this.


Now go to https://archive.org/details/1930_census or whatever year you're after, and click on the state (MO here from the Event place line), then I usually hold down the Ctrl key, and type f to bring up the find box to find the NARA reel 3 (1225 here).
Click on that, then on the "read online" link to bring up:
https://archive.org/stream/missouricensus00reel1225#page/n0/mode/2up

We want to edit this URL, changing the image # and the up-ness, to:
https://archive.org/stream/missouricensus00reel1225#page/n256/mode/1up
Magnify the image by 4 (or more) clicks - you want at least 4 for a saved image with decent resolution).
Now this page begins in the middle of h/h # 166 (col 4) and we want h/h # 119, so click back 4 pages (I counted them as I was searching for 119) to get to our desired page:
https://archive.org/stream/missouricensus00reel1225#page/n252/mode/1up
NB the addy is 833 Clark Ave - the street name is written sideways in col 1 - it doesn't look like a column, more like a blank space after the page #s, and the house # is in col 2.

Thank you everyone! I have the great uncle's war record and attestation papers. When I posted I was going from memory rather than checking my own records, which is why I got the year wrong. I don't have any doubt about having the right woman. All the various records, including the shipping line manifest tie in correctly. Thank you for the tip on the husbands' WW1 records. I hadn't thought of that one, and thank you for the tips on getting a US Census page. You've been a great help.