The 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge this week is Going to the Chapel. I have some wedding photos in my collection. However, the ancestors I know were definitely married in a chapel I don't have photos for.  So I have decided to talk about one of the wedding photo's in my collection.  I just realised going through my records I have never ordered their marriage certificate. I was hoping it was in my grandma's documents as she had a wealth of them.  Alas it was not so I really need to look at getting this ordered to find out.  In the meantime I will write about the bit of information I have.  

Week 23 - Going to the Chapel

 

This photo is of my great-grandparents Fletcher Alderwin Brand and Gladys Gwendoline Matheson on their wedding day.  I do not know where they got married just that they married on the 10th June 1920 in Perth, Western Australia.¹   I only just realised that it is 98 years ago this coming Sunday since they wed!   Fletcher was the seventh child of ten, to David Brand and Susanna Criddle, born on 16 December 1881 in Dongara, Western Australia.^2,3 Gladys was the youngest of ten children born 16 June 1894 in Bathurst, New South Wales, to Robert Matheson and Edith Ford.^3,4   I am unsure how they met as Gladys lived in Victoria Park with her family and Fletcher had grown up in Dongara over 400km north of Perth.⁵ Fletcher had been demobilised after the war on 15 October 1919, marrying less than a year later, so possibly they met when he returned.⁶   I am sure I asked my grandma at some point, however, I never wrote it down and now have no way to find out their story.   I regret not asking more questions and writing them down.   Fletcher died on 23 August 1947 in the Fremantle Hospital, he was in receipt of a War Pension at the time, likely from injuries received during the war.^6,7 Gladys died on 25 July 1973 in Mount Lawley, Western Australia, long enough to hear news of me, her first great-grandchild.⁸    

Find your ancestors wedding details today.  Click on the image below to find them at Ancestry.

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Bibliography

1. Marriage Index, Fletcher Alderwin Brand and Gladys Gwendoline Matheson, 1920, Registration Number: 673, Perth, Western Australia, http://www.bdm.dotag.wa.gov.au/_apps/pioneersindex/default.aspx.

2. Ancestry.com. Australia, Birth Index, 1788-1922 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010, Fletcher Alderwin Brand, 1881/22568, Western Australia, Accessed 15 May 2015./span>

3. Marjorey June Brand, The Friendship Birthday Book, original in author’s possession.

4. Findmypast, Birth Index Gladys Gwendoline Matheson, 5859/1894, Bathurst, New South Wales Births, Accessed 10 May 2014.4

5. Electoral Roll, 1916 Western Australia: Division - Fremantle, Subdivision - Canning, P.3, Gladys Matheson.

6. National Archives of Australia, ‘Service Record of Fletcher Alderwin Brand’, NAA: B2455, Brand F A, Accessed 20 September 2016.

7. Ancestry.com. Australia, Death Index, 1787-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010., Death Index Fletcher Alderwin Brand, Accessed 17 October 2014.

8. Ancestry.com. Australia, Death Index, 1787-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010, Reg. No. 2698/73 Perth, Western Australia, Gladys Gwendoline Brand, Accessed 17 October 2014.

Image Credits

a. Wedding of Fletcher Alderwin Brand and Gladys Gwendoline Matheson, Original in author’s possession.

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