Recently I have been working on my 3rd great-grandmother’s fourth husband Abraham Nabb. (Margaret Grant Brown Cawdell Grennan Nabb’s marriage career is a whole other post!). They were married in India in 1858 and he disappears from the Indian records shortly after.
Margaret died in India in 1900 and was not named as a widow. So what happened to Abraham? From their marriage record I knew that he was a Sgt Major in the Royal Artillery and his father’s name was Thomas. After some searching, I found him in the ‘UK Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioner Soldier Service Records’ on Fold3. This situated him in London in 1868. It supplied a few more nuggets of information – he had been born in Bury, Lancashire and he had been a hatmaker before enlisting. There was no mention of a wife or any family.
There weren’t a lot of Abraham Nabbs in either the UK or India so that helped with the next research steps. An Abraham Nabb had married Ann Thorp in Lancashire c.1869 but I knew Margaret was still alive and living in India. Of course, this would not have been the first bigamous marriage I have come across. At a time when divorce was rare, expensive and social suicide it was easier and cheaper to just move and claim to be widowed.
Further research into this couple found them on a boat to Australia in 1870. This Abraham Nabb died in Victoria in 1885. It was likely that they were the same man, but in order to be sure, I ordered a digital copy of his death certificate.
I hit the jackpot! I have never seen a death record with this much information. Not only did it give the usual information – age, names of parents, marital status, etc. – but it also supplied information on how many marriages, how old he was at each, and how many children each marriage produced.
His widow had provided the information and knew that he had been married while stationed in India, but she had no other information (or chose not to provide it). I do wonder how much Ann knew about her husband’s past. The other details matched what I already knew so there was no doubt that the Abraham Nabb who married Margaret Grant was the same man who emigrated to Australia to start a new life.
In part two I will share some of the reasons why he may have decided to give up his civilian life and join the army. (Hint: the words Highway Robber may appear).
Disclaimer
The transcription was generated by Claude and then reviewed and mistakes fixed by me. The original certificate was purchased from the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria as a non-certified pdf copy (Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria | bdm.vic.gov.au).