How to find a wife......

Trying to trace the wife of John Wedlock, b Saffron Walden 1851/1852. I
can trace him through every census record (although can't find a birth
entry for him in Free BMD, and he's incorrectly indexed in the 1861 as
being 10 years older than he is)

Between the 1871 and 1881, he changes from unmarried to married, and
subsequent census records to 1901 continue to show him as married, but
always with no sign of a wife, because he's a live-in butler.

Searching FreeBMD for the decade between 1871 and 1881 for a marriage

Charani...

8>< snip

gives three possible entries, all in 1872, in Henley, Stepney and
Liskeard. In the 1871 he's working in Bedfordshire, and in 1881 in
London, where he stayed for the rest of his career, so it looks like
Stepney is the best bet. The two wives indicated on the record are
Martha Anderson and Maria Savage, and the other male entry is for James
Langley.

I've tried looking for Martha Wedlocks, Maria Wedlocks, James Langley
with a wife called either Martha or Maria, etc etc, but without any
luck.

The Henley record only has one couple, John Wedlock and Elizabeth
Stanmore, and there's a census entry in 1881 that fits them, living in
Nettlebed, Oxfordshire, and I don't think the Cornwall entry is likely
at all.

Any clues as to where else to look? I'm beginning to think he may not
have been married after all

Charani...

Remember that FreeBMD is not yet complete and even the quarters/years
that show as 100% can be up to 3% incomplete.

Try looking on Ancestry for the GRO Indices which are currently free.
This is not the FreeBMD version but the one that run from 1837 to

Roy Stockdill...

Your reply doesn't seem to have reached me yet but I found John
Wedlock's birth entry in the GRO Birth Indexes at findmypast.com
(formerly known as 1837online) to which to have I a subscription. I also
found the 1891 census entry for Maria Wedlock (nee Savage) at the
same site.

They have all the GRO Indexes from 1837 to 2004 and various
censuses, though not yet as complete as Ancestry's.

2004/5.

bigbrian...

Thanks for that. I thought I may have been presumptuous in believing
the FreeBMD register to be complete for that period, so I went to the
Ancestry images, and still nothing (although see my reply to Roy...he
seems to have found an entry from somewhere that isn't shown in the
image on Ancestry, but I don't know where he got it from yet)