It doesn't matter if it's your first, second or fifth marriage, you have to look out for yourself because nobody else is. A second wife should not depend on a guy anymore than a first wife should. I agree that it's fair to be compensated when you put your career on hold to have children and take care of the family, but it's not fair to think you will walk away from the marriage with a better financial position than the person that is the higher wage earner. It's not fair but life's not fair. If it were, men would be giving birth, not us. Your advice KKNY to not get involved with a man with children and not expect him to provide financial and other support is good advice. I wouldn't date a guy that didn't see or support his children. I also wouldn't date a guy that talked bad about his ex. But, the flip side to that argument is that when you get divorced, you have to accept that when he gets remarried, he legally obligates himself to his spouse and possibly more children. His obligation to his first family don't go away and they shouldn't suffer because he remarries, but if he is able to support the new family by increasing his income, then it doesn't impact his first family. The problem is that when the ex wife sees his income go up (or the added income of his new spouse), then she wants her share to go up too. If his income goes up and he doesn't have more mouths to feed, then maybe it would be fair to give more to the first family. MAYBE. It also depends on the ex wife's financial situation. I agree with Ashley that an ex wife can't sit on her duff demanding increases because he's working his butt off to make more. She's not married to him, she needs to do for herself... how pathetic is that? My husband's ex has gotten spousal support for 12 years on a marriage that lasted only one year. (Well, she hasn't finalized the divorce, probably because the court may stop her spousal support) She will continue to get it until he takes her back to court to stop it. My guess is that he is afraid they will increase his child support and reduce the spousal support (which is tax deductible for him) and so he lets it go.

I have called ancestry many times and most of the time, its a reasonable wait and they are always helpful. My brick wall goes back to a John Boston - 1737-1810. He was a Major in the Revolutionary War in the Onslow Militia in NC. I was trying to make a connection to the infamous Henry Boston from the Eastern Shore of MD/VA in the 1640's. There is a hugh book written on his family and descendants. I even tracked one of them down and my husband and he did Y chromosome tests. No connection at all! And there is no connection to the other Boston lines on the Surname Projects done through Familytree DNA. We found a 4th cousin who goes back to the son of John, named James, as my husband does, and he agreed to be tested so we could determine if the line from there is solid and it is. Their results were a very good match. Turns out that there are a number of men with the surname of Burns, Byrne and Byrnes that are closer matches than any Bostons. And there are a couple with the surname of O'Neill and Reed or Reid that are even closer. All of these lines can be traced back to an area of Ireland called Leinster. Well, that's a surprise cause we thought the ancestors came from England or Scotland! So somewhere back either at John's generation or further back, we think a Boston male took in children sired by a man with one of those surnames. That wasn't uncommon at the time since women often lost husband's and men would marry women with children already. The issue here is that they took the Boston name and so now husband's family are Boston by name but not by blood - or at least not by any Boston line that has been documented. Those lines that have been are close to the area where John was, certainly within the realm of possibility for the scenario I proposed. We know that the line is good from James down as we have autosomal testing for cousins and they show up throughout the family tree. But through all this searching, I have located several descendants from the children of James 1767-1837. I have also found hand written documents where James wrote about each of his children, including hubs GGGF, who was given up at 10 days old to another family to raise (Kings) since his mother died. James wrote so lovingly about his wife and children. It was like my meeting him in person. I have so many questions I would love to ask him!

This has all been interesting. One thing to note is that when a woman married she was considered a "bride" during the first year of marriage. Sophie could have died during that time and been designated as such on the headstone. The designation would have indicated that yes, they were legally married but they did not share a long life together where they were known in the community as a 'couple' and they were probably childless. This archaic designation is sometimes still used today with introductions, such as "This is my cousin Jake and his new bride Mary" or "My brother has returned from his honeymoon with his new bride". Knowing local history can sometimes yield clues. Often times there was a sweeping pestilence that wiped out huge numbers suddenly and headstone markers where put up fast or further engraved years afterwards when some of the defining information had been lost or was unknown. One of the most interesting bits of history I learned was the time period designated Year Without A Summer. Large numbers of people died in the Northeast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer Here is a link that might be useful: Year Without A Summer

In my opinion, Joseph Rotblats quotes should be the front page of the Sunday Newspapers and on the second page the Walter Cronkite quotes. Maybe I should have stopped reading after Will Rogers.