The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1903-08-28
FACTS ABOUT MARRIAGES.
GenenIOgist Sets Forth Some Inter-
esting Observations Bearing
Upon MatrimOny.

ne lldSSo VI q ldlllAy OIL q
good guide to go by in determining its
characteristics" said woman, whose
business 1t is to hunt up pedigrees, ac-
cording to the Chicago Inter Ocean. Il
should warn any girl who has many
old maid aunts and bachelor uncles not
to daily with her first proposal if she
would not be an old maid herself. Like
wise, believe that girls chances
Tor remarriage, if widowed early, can
be judged pretty accurately from the
annals of her family in this respect.
Just as certain sort of eyebrow or
cheek or chin formation is to be traced
throughout an entire family so the at
titude Of the family toward marriage
seems to be handed down.
when in the course of my work
am in doubt about the identity of fam
lily am guided good deal by the char
acter of the marriages set down. For
these illustrate the dominant family
traits which govern as much in love
matters as in other concerns of life.
"In some families early marriages
predominant The men invariably
marry before they are 25, and the wom-
en- at a corerspondingly early age.
Again, late marriages will be the rule
with members of either sex.
Some family trees show few second
marriages, and rarely third marriage.
no matter how soon the married state
came to an end. Other records are re-
plete with second and third and even
fourth marriages on the part of widows
and widowers.
"Often 1t occurs that in families of
nine or more brothers and sisters, only
two or three have married, and the de-
scendants of those two or three dis
played a similar proneness to bachelor
hood and spinsterhood.
"'Our family are not great on mar
rying,' a girl, one of four single sisters,
remarked to me lately regarding the
family licensees she was showing all
grouped together on one wall panel.
"And 1 could not but feel that that
array of contented-looking single en-
titles among her kinspeople must ex-
ert some influence on her own matri-
monial prospects.
Some families display marked
tendency to marry their kinsfolk, or
| the connections or relations of their
| kinsfolk. Others again seem by COM
mon impulse to have gone as far from
home quarters as possible in search of
mates.
'In records that go back only a few
generations, there are instances of
men who have taken three sisters sue
cessively to wife, and of women mar
rying their brothers in law and cousins
in law, or their stepfathers, the same
tendency to race utilization cropping
out again and again in the line. In
other families living in the same
neighborhood and environment not a
single instance of marriage with rela-
lions or relations in law occurs.
Zone comes upon families in which
an unmarried member of either sex is
a great rarity and families in which
marriage seems to have come easily
and as foregone conclusion, and in
which none of the widows or widowers
stayed single for any length of time
"In studying out relationships in
quantity old-fashioned communities
one runs upon families that seemed
bound to marry at cross purposes, as
it were, both as to age and standing
of the mates chosen. A widower takes
for third wife his sons stepdaughter
or a widow marries the son of the man
whom her daughter married. Just SC
there are family records in which a
marriage at very advanced age OF
with partner of lower rank socially
never occurs.
81 thing fortune tellers could add tc
the effectiveness of their prophecies
in love matters If they could have the
advantage of scanning the family an
nails of the applicants.
There is no phase Of genealogical
research so fascinating as noting the
record implied by the marriage on a
family tree. But the genealogist of the
future will have more complicated
work in tracing out lines and traits
than exists now on account of the di.
vorces figuring in the matter