Avunculate Marriages --explained here. Thanks Darrel Hockley

Avunculate Marriages --explained here.  Thanks Darrel Hockley

As we are struggling to unscramble inter marrying families, I received this information from Darrel Hockley.  He gave permission for me to reprint and show one correction.

No wonder some of the lines are so confusing. Also some of our programs are struggling to deal with this inter linking.

On May 12, 2016, at 10:34 PM, Darrel Hockley via wrote:

> Avunculate marriage is the marriage of an uncle with his niece or an aunt with her nephew. These type of marriages were usually done to keep wealth and property within families. In England before the Reformation, a Papal Dispensation had to obtained for such a marriage to be legal.

> In colonial New Jersey such marriages were declared void in 1682. However avunculate marriages were not made illegal in the neighbouring Province of New York until 1893. (Since 2014 they are once more legal in New York.)

> Now knowing the above, various entries concerning the Woolley/Wooley families make sense as taken from the Trella May Hall Collection located in the Archives at the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

> Edward Woolley, born 16 January 1691/62 at Shrewsbury, Monmouth County, New Jersey (some people said he was born in Rhode Island which I believe is wrong), was a son of Edward Woolley (1655 to 1729) and his wife Lydia Allen (1660 to 1742). His older sister was Elizabeth Woolley (1685 to 1723) the wife of Gabriel Stelle (de L'Estoile) (1685 to 1738) of Perth Amboy, Middlesex County, New Jersey. Elizabeth and Gabriel had a daughter named Lydia "Lida" Stelle who was born in 1709.

> The younger Edward was mentioned in the Will of his father Edward Woolley dated 3 January 1728/29. However, he is not in the Will of his mother which was written on 3 November 1732. Daughter Lydia Stelle is also not named in the Will of her father Gabriel. I believe that sometime in 1729 Edward Woolley the Younger and his niece Lydia Stelle eloped (she was probably pregnant with their son Jehu/John), leaving New Jersey for Dutchess County, New York, where they married (legally) and settled there. Widow Lydia Allen Woolley and Gabriel Stelle did not approve of this marriage and that is why they cut off their respective children from any inheritance.

> Children of Edward and Lydia were:

> Jehu/John Woolley (1729 to 1812)William Woolley (1730 to 1817) married Elizabeth EvartsAbel Woolley (1734 to 1826) married Mary CarterLydia Valeria Woolley (1737 to 1813) married Zephaniah HowardPontius Woolley (1739 to 1814) married Content Palmer

> William Woolley and his wife Elizabeth later moved to Middleton, New Jersey and I believe that it was his descendants that Dr. John E. Stillwell found living in New Bargain Mills, Howell township, Monmouth County, NJ  in 1893.

> I do not know what religion Edward Howard and his wife Lydia Steel followed. They were not Quakers as Edward's ancestors were. Lydia's branch of the Stelle/de L'Estoile family were Anglicans. Daughter Lydia Valeria and her husband Zephaniah Howard were Baptists. Son Pontius Woolley probably became a Quaker in order to marry Content Palmer who came from an Connecticut Quaker family. I do not know when Edward and Lydia died.

> Some family historians say that Peter Woolley (born 1732; died unknown) whose wife was Hannah Potter, was also a son of Edward and Lydia (Stelle) Woolley. He was actually the son of Peter Woolley and his wife Mary Tilton. The elder Peter in turn was a son of William Woolley (1662 to 1718) and his wife Ann West of Shrewbury, NJ. Actually Peter Woolley (c.1695 to after 1732) was married three times. His first wife was Margaret Stelle (born 1705; died probably about 1725), the oldest sister of Lydia. His second and third wives were Martha Tilton and Mary Tilton. Young Peter moved to Dutchess County also and had a very close relationship with Abel and  Pontius Woolley and with Zephaniah Howard so that made some to think he was a brother to Abel, Pontius, and Lydia Valeria.

> Thus, with none of the Woolley historians knowing about Avunculate marriage - also the idea that an uncle marrying his blood niece would have filled those Victorians with dread about incest - that line of the Woolley family has not been recorded properly.

> Darrel Hockley

> Regina, SK, Canada

> 

> Correction is here:

Hello Susi,

Yes, you can print my email, only I have a correction to make, It has been pointed out to me that Lydia Valeria and her husband Zephaniah Howard were Quakers and not Baptists; one of their grandchildren (Chauncey Howard, my ancestor) became at various times a Baptist or a Methodist, depending on where he lived in Illinois.

Darrel Hockley

Regina, SK, Canada

********

My request to Darrel

Darrell

May I print your letter in it's entirety on my blog. I think you have opened the door for many people struggling to break brick walls.  Awaiting your reply.

I am Educational Chairperson for CVGS in Chula Vista Ca..

http://ancestorseekersbytherootbound.blogspot.com/2016/05/thriller-thursday-new-source-for.html       teaching blog

http://susischattyperformances.blogspot.com/2016/05/your-family-members-are-involved-world.html     personal blog

http://www.cvgenealogy.org/             society blog

Susi