Week 3: Out of Place

 Week 3:  Out of Place

   

One day as I was working on my Williams line I concentrated on Byard Williams (1838-95), my second great-granduncle.  Byard and his wife Anna Partington had five children: Sophronia Elma; Ulysses Grant; Oscar; Rose; and Henry Babe.  I was intrigued by the unusual name of Sophronia so I looked it up and found that the name had Greek origins and meant "prudent" or "wise".  

That same day on the Williams tree I noticed the name Sophronia again.  Henry K. Williams (1858-1951), who was Byard's youngest brother, had married a woman named Sophronia. Maybe that name wasn't so unusual after all. Then I noticed that both Sophronias had the middle name of Elma.  

Hmmm.

Then I noticed that both Sophronias had the same birth and death dates (1867-1927). Could it be that they were the same person?  

Yes, it turns out.

Henry K. Williams had married his oldest brother's daughter---his own niece! That sent me down a rabbit hole where I found that marriage between an uncle and his niece (or marriage between an aunt and her nephew) is called an "avunculate marriage".  Avunculate marriages are explicitly illegal now in most English-speaking countries but in that time period, there were fewer laws against them. What I haven't been able to find out is what the laws were at the time that Henry and Sophronia married in Delphi, Indiana, in 1885.

Was their marriage legal?  Was it talked about?  Would it be prudent or wise to have children in an avunculate marriage?  The partners of a marriage like theirs share, on average, 25% of their genetic material, the same genetic relationship as half-siblings or a grandparent and grandchild. In contrast, first cousins only share 12.5% of their genetic material.

Henry K. and Sophronia had just one child. Their son was born in October of 1889 but died on 7 Sep 1890.  His grave is only marked as Male Child Williams and is located in the Cooper Cemetery in Fairbury, Illinois.  He is buried next to Byard Williams.  Was Byard his uncle or his grandfather...or both?