Couples married in Kentucky then remarried in Tennessee
Recently, I have run across several couples from Tennessee who married in Kentucky in the 1935 - 1945 years who originally married in Kentucky, then several years later "remarried" in Tennessee. Does anyone know what this is about? See records for William Lane ( G7BN-B85) and Dorothy Witherspoon for an example but there have been several others.
Answers
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Hello @ME Doran ,
It does seem odd. The only thing I can make out is that William Frederick Lane's father is different in both marriage records. His ID is G7BN-B85.
That would then take some research to understand that.
All the best.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Anitra, mod
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E G Lane and Ed Lane are the same person. This is not the only couple that I have seen this in. They marry in Kentucky and later marry in Tennessee.
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@ME Doran this can be for several reasons:
1) The restrictions are lighter in TN than they are in KY so the couple first marries in the state with easier restrictions (age, relationships [if they are closer than a 3rd cousin, for instance], the cost of the license, permissions needed by the couple)
2) The couple's family didn't agree to the marriage, so they married elsewhere so the family could not stop them. (this is way more common than most people think!)
3) Sometimes the couple simply want to be married in a different state. The reasons include simple desire, or they could include the fact that the woman is pregnant and if the marriage record is elsewhere, it is easier to flub the conception date to make it look like she wasn't pregnant first.
While the Gretna Greens locations don't support the fact that the eloped from KY to TN (see https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Gretna_Greens_in_the_United_States ),those locations are not absolute.
If the family was religious, but the couple chose to marry elsewhere because the family didn't approve, a lot of times the couple would need to "keep the peace" by marrying "Under God's eyes" and therefore in the eyes of one or both sets of parents by having a second marriage as the parents expected.
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