Genealogy Chat

It turns out that my parent's marriage certificate shows my father's status as a widower at the time of their marriage.

My father was born in Scotland so I have searched Scotlandspeople's marriage records as well as the ones on this site and he doesn't seem to be there.

Can anyone help?

His name was George Gellately and he was born in 1907 in Dundee, Scotland. He was a widower by the time he remarried in England in 1960.

Many thanks

Fiona

Maybe a search of old electoral lists for your father's address as shown on his 1960 marriage certificate will show him with a wife in previous years. You could then search on GRO for a death around the time she disappears off the list.
This will at least give an age and might help with searching for a marriage to your surname.
I would imagine it could lend itself to many varied mistranscriptions.

He could have married overseas perhaps?

Gwyn

Ancestry has two marriages apart from the one you have for George Gellately.

This one:-
Name: George Gellately
Spouse: Margaret M Harkins
Date of Registration: Jan-Feb-Mar 1935
Registration district: Axbridge
Registration county (inferred): Somerset
Volume Number: 5c
Page Number: 850


And this one
Name: George H Gellately
Spouse: Margaret M Munn
Date of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec 1944
Registration district: Northumberland South
Registration county (inferred): Northumberland
Volume Number: 10b
Page Number: 509

Strange they are both Margaret M.

He could have married in Scotland after 1933 and then you wouldn't find it on Scotlands People because of the closure rules.

There's an Amy Gellately death (age 50) in 1958 in the Isle of Wight which might be his first wife. Might be worth buying the cert to find out.

Can't find an Amy marrying a Gellately on Ancestry, so that could tie in with a Scottish marriage - all circumstantial but possible!