Mary Emma (Soady) Butson's Parents

research note by Wesley Johnston

last updated 7 Feb 2012

Background: The Known and the Unknown

Mary Emma (Soady) Butson's father is given in her marriage record as mariner James Soady (familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11053-148378-11).

Her mother, with the married name Mary Bate Soady, appears with the Butson family in the 1891 and other censuses of Bodinnick in the parish of Lanteglos by Fowey, Cornwall.

So it is clear that her parents were James and Mary Bate Soady (with Bate as Mary's middle name and not her maiden name).

However, the Cornwall OPC database has no marriage for such a couple, although there is a 3 Oct 1848 marriage of James Soady and Emma Olford at Lanteglos by Fowey (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11053-148129-98).

And there is no baptism found in the parish registers there nor at St Stephen in Brannel for Mary Emma Soady, although her civil birth registration in the July - September quarter of 1854 in the St Germans registration district appears in FreeBMD.

So what can be established about the childhood family of Mary Emma Soady?

James Soady married his deceased wife's sister.

As noted above, James Soady married Emma Soady 3 Oct 1848 at Lanteglos by Fowey: https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11053-148129-98

Emma died, quite possibly in child birth although I have not yet found a record of such a child, at Bodinnick and was buried at Lanteglos by Fowey 17 Jun 1849: https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11053-148453-5

Emma, baptized 25 Dec 1830 at Latneglos by Fowey, was one of the nine known children of George and Mary (Bate - her surname) Olford who married at Lanteglos by Fowey 12 May 1812.

Another of George and Mary's children was Emma's older sister, Mary Bate (Bate was her middle name and not her surname) Olford, who was baptized 1 Jan 1828 at Lenteglos by Fowey.

Until 1907, it was prohibited both by the Church of England and by civil law for a man to marry his deceeased wife's sister (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deceased_Wife%27s_Sister%27s_Marriage_Act_1907). However, it often happened. The situation created more problems for later family historians than it did for the couple. The only difficulties for the couple appear to have been that (1) they had to go someplace to be married where they were not known and (2) their children could not be baptized in the Church of England. (I do not know that this prohibition was written, but it was in fact the practice that the children of such couples were not baptized in the Church, particularly after 1837 when civil registration of births began.) Thus finding records for such couples is a bit of a challenge to later researchers.

In fact, when James Soady and Mary Bate Olford married, they left Cornwall and married in Devon (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KC92-8CT). I have not yet gone to an LDS Family History Center to view this record image, so that I do not know the specifics.

Mary Emma Soady's Civil Birth Registration

There apparently was no Church of England baptism for Mary Emma Soady, since the marriage of her parents was technically both illegal and against the prohibitions of the Church at that time. However, her birth was registered in the civil registration in the July-September 1854 quarter at the St Germans, Cornwall, registration district, which included many parishes (http://www2.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?r=21925642&d=bmd_1358896109). Later censuses show her born at St Stephen in Brannel, but there is no 1854-1855 baptism for her in any parish in the Cornwall OPC database.