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2024 Week 16: Step #52Ancestorsin52weeks

Almost everyone will know a blended family - a 'step' family formed with two partners and the children from one or both of them. Nowadays this is likely to have arisen when one or both adults have been divorced from their previous partner(s). However, although divorce today is commonplace, it wasn't always the case. Until the 20th century the only grounds for divorce in Scotland were desertion or adultery and it was not until 1976 that in law provision was made for 'divorce by mutual consent'.
However, blended families have always existed - families brought together, not by divorce or separation, but usually by death.
My great grandmother, Mary Boag, died three weeks after giving birth in 1869 at the age of 40. The child, a boy they named Hugh, died the day before his mother. My great grandfather, John McAra, had lost both his wife and newborn baby within 24 hours, yet he still had four children under ten years of age to care for. He likely registered both deaths at the same time - see below.
Death certificate of Mary McAra and her son Hugh. Source: Scotlands People

We have no way of knowing how John and his children managed to get through the difficult times they had ahead. I expect family would have rallied round to look after the children. There was also an elder daughter, Jane, 19, who most likely took on the role of 'mother' to the young ones. Two years later John and his family are still together, possibly because of Jane. However, three years later, we find John remarrying. The lady herself was a widow, who seems to have been childless. So now the McAra children had a step-mother.
John's second marriage to Mary Wilson. Source: Scotlands People
This sort of situation was common. I have numerous examples in my family tree. Sometimes it was the death of a husband, as in the case of my 3 x great grandmother Jean Russell, who was left with five children and a baby after her husband James Boston died at around the age of 40 in 1807. Jean "remarried" possibly soon after - she had another baby in 1808 whose later documentation lists William Robertson as her father, though surprisingly Jean's death certificate has no mention of him.
But the most complicated 'step' family I have come across has to be that of my maternal great grandfather David Anderson and his wife, my great grandmother Helen Young. David married Helen in 1873. His first wife had died three years previous to that, leaving him with a toddler and a baby. Helen was unmarried, but she already had three children, father or fathers unknown! They went on to have five children together. 
Something we will never know is whether these relationships came about through love or necessity or both. In those cases, at least the families were kept together. The children could easily have ended up in an orphanage or workhouse.




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