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Hi everyone.

With the greatest respect and despite all your efforts with some possible answers it seems none can take me any further in proving Jane's mother etc.
I have been over and over everything and maybe have to accept a brickwall.
I'm wondering if the m cert of Jane showing father Henry should have shown him deceased.
Could it be possible??
I thank you all.
Les

That's possible, Les.

Also possible is that he and Elizabeth may have separated, and she just said she was widowed for respectability.
Although having said that, I can't see him in censuses after 1851 (or before, for that matter.)

Just because it does not say on the marriage certificate that Henry was deceased does not mean that he was still alive!

The vicar could just have not asked the correct question ..........

Vicar:- "What is your father's name and occupation?"
Jane:- "Henry Wood, Plasterer"

She's answered the question AS ASKED, and not added the extra information that he was deceased (if in fact he was dead).

But if the vicar had asked either .........

"What is your father's name and occupation, and is he still alive?"

OR asked a second question:- "Is your father still alive?"

Then she would have said yes or no.

We cannot assume that he was alive in August 1871 because we do not know whether the vicar asked that question.

Similarly, we cannot assume that he is dead because the person we think might be his wife says she is a widow on a census ............... it was a convenience and face saving for her to say that if the marriage had broken up and he had left the home, leaving her with the children.


We must also remember that a child born after we think the husband might have died is not proof that we are wrong .......

........... if a married woman registers a child, her married name is her legal name, and the assumption is that her husband is the father of the child unless she says he is not ....... and that applies even if he has been dead for 10 years or longer (as I once discovered!!).

Hi Sylvia
Thank you so much for your information.
Regards
Les.