Eh, Dennis, I'm still getting used to this "drag and drop" action I discovered ... but only thing I found in the Help "especially if there were children" or words to that effect ... but WT is not going to make an "issue" out of any time soon ... which is reasonable
There's still the matter of proofs, and what are you supposed to use for that? Where it is legal by the laws of the land, you can present the marriage record. Maybe there's a "Uncertain" thing to click? I have not noticed one.
But if we go forth on the basis that couple cohabited "as if married", I have to suppose there's a "look" married has?, like you can look at them and immediately say "Oh, they're married" without a word said one way or the other.
LOL I've been wrong more than twice -- one case was "Oh, they aren't married" and the other case when I remarked they didn't look married to my eyes, "Oh, they're married all right!" and in both cases I climbed into a bunker and hid. I recall a news item about a couple that were married but she lived in her house and he lived in his house. Did not cohabit. So "as if they were married" is a bit loose to my way of thinking.
Well, I shall confine it to cases I have where a child or more resulted. That would include my -- let's see -- my granny Harriet Medlock Lawson Smith's father's sister and Harriet's mother's grandfather. Uh-huh. Three children over about a decade. Now I know these two were not married because her SECOND legal union was as "Mrs" <married surname>. During that decade she DID use HIS surname.
Then there's number of "marriages" that same woman's daughter had, said to have had, and a serious lack of marriage records located to date, but something like seven? children by five? men. DID she cohabit with the men? Nothing said by other family researchers one way or the other.
There are other cases. Where there ARE known children I make a hunt for a marriage record. That I don't always find one immediately or on a second try does not mean there is none. But I have a much larger pool of those (quantity).
LEGALLY this marriage record matters. SOCIALLY, not so much although it is more openly practiced than say 100 yrs ago. But that couple cohabit but are not legally married by the laws of the land has been happening since there were laws regulating legal unions first created -- and practiced contrary to social pressures. One of those things "we don't talk about it" I heard when growing up. Which my mother'd heard growing up and likewise her mother on back through time.
NOT being LEGALLY married often meant packing up kit and kaboodle and living in another part of the country, since where you came from too many people KNEW the story.
