James Owen of Penrhos

and his descendants

'Second marriage'

On 9 July 1870 Isabel married George Gibbons [Newtown 1870, 3rd qt] at Bethel Calvinistic Methodist Chapel (left), Ladywell Street, Llanidloes. According to their marriage certificate George was a labourer, aged 30, the son of carpenter, John Gibbons, and Isabella Roberts was a spinster and the daughter of a miner, John Roberts; the certificate states that they both lived in Bethel Street (right) at the time. George had been born in 1841 in Arscott, a hamlet in the parish of Pontesbury, [Atcham 1841, 2nd qt] just south-west of Shrewsbury. In the 1841 census he was 2 months old and the son of a carpenter, John Gibbons, and his wife, Sarah.

Apart from her age, which she gave as thirty-five, it would appear that Isabel had taken on the identity of the daughter who had gone to America, giving the name and occupation of the 'bride's father’ as those of her first husband. It seems incredible that she managed to get away with this deception and the claim that she was a spinster when the marriage took place in the town where she grew up, where she was presumably living with her children and where her father was still living at the time. In fact, it seems likely that she was still married to John Roberts; the evidence from Victoria’s marriage certificate in 1884 suggests he was alive then.   >>