I spent a long time searching for a marriage record for my 3x great-grandparents, James and Isabella. I searched various name combinations and variations, and across a significant period of time, and had no luck pinpointing it.

Then one day I solved the mystery by looking again, and more closely, at the birth records for children born to James, and at Scottish marriage law. Putting all the pieces together, it suddenly made sense.

The death of James Reid’s wife Mary Ann in 1874 left him with sole care of a three-year-old son and eighteen-month-old daughter, another baby having died before her first birthday.

When Isabella Smith, came to stay, it was to help with his children. As Mary Ann’s sister, and James’ sister-in-law, Isabella was well-placed to step into the breach. She gave up her job as a domestic servant in the house of someone unrelated, to take a similar role for family. It was important not just because of her relationship to them, but because James was a train driver and that meant significant time away from home. He needed the job to provide for his family.

The dynamics in the Reid household in Aberdeen changed at some point after Isabella’s arrival, probably after their official mourning ended, because two years after Mary Ann’s death James became father to twin daughters. The 1876 birth registration for Lilly and Isabella said their parents had married four months earlier. The registrations for further children recorded the same date, with a couple of exceptions where a date two weeks later was given. However, there is no record of James Reid and Isabella Smith officially marrying because at that time it was illegal to marry your sister-in-law.

By two Statutes of the Scottish Parliament passed, one before and another at the time of the Revolution Settlement, the Confession of Faith was made part of the Statute Law of Scotland, the Confession of Faith contains as one of its Articles that “A man shall not marry any of his wife’s kindred nearer than any of his own,” and that Article is in accordance with the conscience and practice of the Scotch people for generations.

UK Parliament Historic Hansard: 1803-2005, ‘Marriage With a Deceased Wife’s Sister (Scotland) Bill. (No.13.)’, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1889/apr/03/marriage-with-a-deceased-wifes-sister, accessed 28 November 2021.

Although controversial, it was however not uncommon for in-laws to pursue a relationship under circumstances like those of James and Isabella, where they were not related by blood. They began with a shared purpose, and affection developed. Their children may never have known about the situation, and it’s possible that because James’ two eldest children were so young when their mother Mary Ann died, they simply accepted Isabella as their mother, too. As well as the children he had with Mary Ann, James had twelve children with Isabella. A big family!

James and Isabella’s was more than a ‘marriage’ of convenience and they were together for 45 years. Even when it became legal to marry, they never did, probably because they felt they didn’t need to. Their relationship spoke for itself.

Stay tuned for more information about the Reid family. I challenged myself to find out what happened to all of the many Reid children, and will share that information in a future post.

Selected references

UK Parliament Historic Hansard: 1803-2005, ‘Marriage With a Deceased Wife’s Sister (Scotland) Bill. (No.13.)’, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1889/apr/03/marriage-with-a-deceased-wifes-sister, accessed 28 November 2021.

Probert, Rebecca, Marriage Law for Genealogists: The Definitive Guide, 2^nd edition, Takeaway Publishing, England, 2016.

University of Glasgow, ‘Scottish way of birth and death’, https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/economicsocialhistory/projects/scottishwayofbirthanddeath/marriage/, accessed 23 March 2024.