Irregular Marriage

If you find this term in your Genealogy it means this...

In Isolated frontier areas couples were not always able to travel to a church or preacher or legal recorder when they wanted to marry so they would publicly state their intentions and set up housekeeping together and then when the first itinerant minister came through, he would marry them.

This term was accepted by church elders, in Scotland and here in the U.S.A. in the earlier days. The couple was not thought of as promiscuous, it was just something that they did. The children under law were never thought as illegitimate, and thus, the church didn't either.

So in some states now, they call it common law marriage, or even the new modern term, Domestic Partner...

Correct Last Names....

My own last name is a huge long German name... and let me tell you, we are a unique bunch, but the problem I am having now is, when my Great Great Grandfather and his family immigrated to this country in 1881, after living in NYC for a short stay, they moved to Illinois. Upon doing research in the community that they lived in, I discovered that there were several other families living there with the same last name but with a different spelling.. my version is ae, another is ea, and then the third, a. And the ones with the A are the ones who spelled it this way when they were living in Germany, but my GGGrandfather changed his name to ae, and a cousin of his switched it to ea.

It has become confusing at times to tie it all together, but I am not quitting, just taking my time to read thru the names, and make out a family group sheet and work on connecting the families. They separated upon leaving Illinois via North Dakota then to Washington state. The cousins, left Illinois for N.D. as well, but then to California and Chicago.

So when you are doing your research, make sure you check with various spellings.. there could be more family than you know..