Writing a chapter in a book with the working title '1830' I re-constructed a wedding in Arlesey, Bedfordshire, England, in the December of that year.
The story was already planned (half true, half fiction), the location and characters taken from the extensive family tree I have been adding to since its humble beginnings in the 1970s.
This wedding, between a girl I call Daisy Dear and her young suitor I call Jericho Street, was important to my story for its timing and its implications for the next generation, and I was able to fill in what I believe to be the majority of people who were invited/attended the wedding celebrations.
Despite the excellent research tools available for an amateur genealogist, poor record keeping and other limitations show that some people are only known from their birth record. A handful of people simply disappeared and one can only guess that most died - probably in childhood. Thus I do not claim my results are completely correct, there is a margin of error. On the other hand, that margin does not seem very large or important.
The research also begs another question - when did family become so distant that it ceased to be family at all?
We know the Victorians did not worry about marrying their cousins (although I found no relations marrying each other in this case).
But this kinship study revealed the family's geographical distribution, limiting the wedding guests to those who lived in the area which I term the geographical 'family hub'.
Thus the wedding guests who considered themselves family were not only blood relatives, but continued to live in the general area of their ancestors. In this case the individuals from these two families lived either side of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire border in England.
The Street family tree, instigated long ago by my grandfather, Nelson Street, without use of documentation and extremely reliable (in living memory), was an excellent base upon which to construct my research, so much so that I am pretty confident that my research on the 1830 wedding is solid.
This is what the research revealed:
The Street side of the family (the groom's), family was mainly composed of the descendants and their families of a blacksmith who was born in Stotfold, Bedfordshire in 1674.
On the Dear side of the family (the bride's), family was mainly composed of the descendants and their families of Joseph Deer born 1737 in Holwell Hertfordshire.
The 'family hub' where these families lived, comprised of the following villages:
Langford, Arlesey, Stotfold in Bedfordshire; Hinxworth and Norton in Hertfordshire.
This is a small area of south East Bedfordshire and North West Hertfordshire. Forming a triangle roughly five miles in length, and cut through the center by the Great North Road. (Also the River Ivel flows northwards from Baldock through Radwell, Stotold, and Astwick to Langford and the River Hiz joins it near Henlow, flowing northwards to Biggleswade to meet the Ouse at Tempsford).
Historically, these Street and Dear families were directly descended from ancestors living in Shillington between 1580 and 1650, residing there at the same time roughly between 1580 and 1610.
In 1830 both families were present in Langford and Arlesey.
I have identified approximately one hundred family members living in the villages that constitute the 'family hub' at this wedding in 1830 (if they were all invited!) These are the individuals used in this snapshot analysis.
Jericho and Daisy's wedding in 1830 refers to George Street and Elizabeth Dear both born 1811, in Arlesey, who married on 11th December 1830. (The nicknames are my own invention - allowing for better story telling).
Estimates:
Adults total = 55
Men aged 18-50 = 23
Men aged 16-20 = 5
Women between 22-50 = 22
Women between 16-22 = 5
Total number of children (below 16) = 50
Of which Children under 7 years = 31
Girls under seven = 17
Boys under seven = 14
Of which Babies under three = 15
Baby girls = 9
Baby boys = 6
Of which Children aged 8-15 = 16
girls 8-15 = 8
boys 8-15 = 8
Children between about 15 to 20 most poorly represented - about 7 or less?
Elderly family relatives probably still living = about 24
Separate (nuclear) family units = 18 (based on women with children)
Represents four (surviving) generations of the Dear and Street families
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Age and Gender Data : Jericho and Daisy's Wedding 1830
Non-FictionWriting a chapter in a book with the working title '1830' I found myself re-constructing a wedding in Arlesey, Bedfordshire in the December of that year. Having most of the names of the individual family members who could be at the wedding, I decide...
