[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] divorce

[Delores Stevens]

What I am seeing is that  the first spouse lived from 1815-1877 and the
marriage date was Oct 22, 1833.  Then there is a second marriage date of
April 29, 1842 for a second spouse.  That is why I am wondering about
divorce in that time period.  Thank you
Delores

----- Original Message -----
From: <AlbertMuth at aol.com>
To: <Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 7:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] divorce


> I would say no, divorce was not common.  When anyone marries, his/her
> social status is clearly indicated in the record: single, widowed,
divorced.
> Unwed mothers are also clearly designated.
>
> Divorce records for Lutherans in Russian Poland do not appear in the
> LDS catalog.  Marginal notes in some marriage records show that the
> marriage ended in divorce, a year is given, and the religious court (?)
> is usually Plock.  This is not to say that each parish did not maintain
> separate records of their divorced couples.  In one early Plock film, I
> remember seeing a separate section (in addition to the usual births,
> marriages, and deaths) where, in one year, three divorces were
> recorded.
>
> Does this mean that every parish maintained a separate yearly book
> for divorces?  Perhaps, but judging by what I see in the online catalog
> of the Polish archives http://baza.archiwa.gov.pl/sezam/pradziad.eng.php
> this would be minimal.  Only a handful of places are shown.
>
> Desertion seems to be as common, perhaps more so.  In my
> transcriptions, I do not usually record spouse desertions.  There is
> a phrase (I am writing from memory, so the Polish may be imperfect):
> z pobyle niewiadomego, which roughly translated, means "whereabouts
> unknown".  The phrase may be used to refer to a parent of a bride/
> bridegroom, or of a married woman who has a child by some other
> man (whose name is seldom given). In the latter case, it often states
> how long the absent husband has been gone.
>
> One case that occurs somewhat frequently is that of the married woman
> whose husband is off serving in the Russian army.   For whatever reason,
> "while the cat is away, the mouse will play..." and, oops, there's a baby.
> I have often wondered what the end to this story might be.
>
> If you see in the Pedigree Database that one individual remarries,
> yet the deathdate of the previous spouse is not given, this probably
> *ONLY* means that the death records have not been extracted.  Or,
> if they were, that (1) the person may have died somewhere else
> while on a visit, or (2) the death was recorded in a Catholic parish,
> rather than the Lutheran one, or vice-versa.  Some parishes record
> the death date of a deceased spouse when the widower or widow
> remarries, but many do not.  Most record the name of a deceased
> spouse, but not all do.
>
> In any case, if you have questions about the film source for exact
> dates found in the Pedigree Database (whose source is SGGEE001,
> SGGEE002, etc), you can contact databases at sggee.org
> and they can give the exact film reference.  When SGGEE sends
> members a gedcom with database information on their families, the
> gedcom *does* include source information of this sort for all individuals.
> To find it, you need to know the ins and outs of your genealogy software.
> If you don't seem to find any source information on 19th century dates,
> ask yourself:  how old is my software?
>
> Al Muth
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