Deserting Bigamist Tracked Down after 124 Years

Our client’s grandfather Ed Sr. was born to teenage parents and, when he was abandoned by them, was brought up by his aunt. He always considered himself as an orphan. His aunt Flo sent him to Quaker School from whence he emerged as a fine upstanding citizen but he died before middle age and took any secrets with him.

Our client wanted to find out what had happened to his great grandparents Fred and Emily. There were rumours that Fred had left his wife to emigrate to America but ended up being killed in a dual in Morocco in the early 1900s. Emily was known to have remarried as a widow but after less than a year of that marriage she was never heard of again.

Fred was indeed traced to America and we found an image of the ship as well as proof he was on the vessel. He didn’t stay there long and we pursued him on various vessels until he ended up in Gibraltar, south of Spain. We traced him to the very door of Imossi’s House, Flat Bastion Road only around 10 miles away from Morocco.

Fred had abandoned his family for a life at sea until he settled in Gibraltar. His estranged wife Emily remarried assuming him to be dead. Soon afterwards, so evidently traumatised was she that she was admitted to an asylum where she was diagnosed as melancholic. We obtained her full case history together with a photograph. Emily was never heard from again. Fred had knowingly committed bigamy. Emily did so innocently.

To achieve this result we had to deal with a former asylum; members of the Gibraltarian government archives; Warrington Library; Quaker Archives and schools.

As for Aunt Flo, we found her gravestone in America and traced her moving backwards and forwards to England to visit Ed Sr. We also discovered that Ed’s grandfather had two hitherto unknown siblings heading two branches of his family tree, providing plenty of cousins. Ed now has a large number of American and Gibraltarian cousins he never knew he had.