I have a query about marriages in 18th-century Virgina, but first I should
provide some context for it:

BACKGROUND
Last week I read Lorri Glover’s All Our Relations: Blood Ties and
Emotional Bonds Among the Early South Carolina Gentry (Johns Hopkins
University Press) in which the author demonstrates the importance of
extended family ties in 18th-century South Carolina.

     Her findings have obvious parallels to colonial Virginia (indeed
Glover quotes Benjamin Latrobe and others about the frequency of
marriages between cousins in Virginia). and she refers extensively to
relevant Chesapeake scholarship such as Darrett and Anita Rutman’s
“’Now-Wives’ and ‘Sons-in-Law’” article, their Place In Time volumes,
Kulikoff’s Tobacco and Slaves, etc. etc.

     Glover’s main point prods social historians to look beyond the
conjugal nuclear family unit and to recognize the importance of
extended kin networks. Its well written and richly documented – and
no doubt some enterprising grad student will soon test its theses in
Virginia sources, etc etc.

     One aspect of her main thesis is the general question of marriage or
re-marriage between members of extended and often inter-connection
family networks – and she has some fascinating comparative
information about blood-proximity of marriage not only in South
Carolina but in England, New England and elsewhere.

QUERY
In connection with some current research about one family, I’ve been
wondering about other instances in which a widower or widow remarries the
sister or brother (or step-sister or step-brother) of the deceased spouse.
Was it common? My impression (based on 30 years of rummaging in Virginia
history) is that in the 18th- and 19th centuries (when mortality rates
were much higher than today, especially from child-birth) instances of
re-marriage to a surviving sibling or step-sibling was not uncommon.

     I don’t want to clutter everyone’s in-boxes, but I would be
interested in off-list postings of specific instances in 18th-century
Virginia of marriages in which a widow or widower marries a surviving
sibling or step-sibling of his/her deceased spouse.

Off-list posts can be directed to “[log in to unmask]  THANK YOU!

PS     I’d be grateful if some eligible VA-HIST subscriber cared to
cross-post this message to VA-ROOTS.




Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President
Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial
1250 Red Hill Road
Brookneal, Virginia 24528
www.redhill.org

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