In the Duke family, this is The $64,000 Question. That reference is to an old game show from the late 1950s, but it aptly describes both the mystery of William and Elizabeth’s marriage and the effort that has been expended to find it.
How do we know who William Duke married?
Elizabeth Cockayne’s name has come down to the present through family traditions in multiple branches of the Duke family. In addition, Minard’s History of Allegany County, N. Y. (published in 1896) stated the name of William’s wife was Elizabeth Cockayne.[1] Though the marriage itself has not been found, the multiple sources which agree on Elizabeth’s name make it very likely Cockayne was her surname.
Researching the question
The question of when and where William and Elizabeth married has been researched on both sides of the Atlantic for decades. With no marriage record or evidence held by any branch of the Duke family and no data from printed family histories, sources for marriages from 1820-1830 in the state of New York (including NYC) and England were searched. Those target years were chosen because William was with a female age 20-30 and a male under 5 in Broome County’s 1830 census.[2] Presumably that was Elizbeth and eldest son, William. That placed their marriage at latest in 1830 and depending on Elizabeth’s age in 1830 they married sometime in the 1820s.
Continue reading “Where and when did 1796 William Duke and Elizabeth Cockayne marry?”