DavidWW's research into the indexing of surnames of women who remarry (where he gives an explanation of the procedure for registering a marriage) which appears in the "Appeal for Examples......." thread prompts me to pose the following question:
I have a marriage for an ancestor of one of my cousins, details (date and place) of which are given in the birth certs of the children that came from that marriage. They all state essentially the same date for the marriage (Edinburgh, 26 June 1912) but there is no trace of it in the indexes. I did the research some years ago and came to the conclusion either that it was an irregular marriage (though none of the children's certificates stated that and I have examples of certificates in other cases where that was explicitly stated) or that someone (the minister? the celebrants?) forgot to notify the Registrar. I never pursued this, but his aside describing the procedure that relates to the schedules got me thinking again. If I had brought this to the attention of NRH at the time, could/would anything have been done to see if the original schedules for the area and the time period were held by NRH and the information could have been somewhat belatedly transferred to the marriage registers and indexes?
A similar problem cropped up when researching another cousin of mine who married in Inverness in 1972. I could not find their marriage in the indexes. I found their children's birth certificates, which gave the date and place of the parents' marriage but, unfortunately, not the specific place - I would imagine it would be one of the churches in Inverness. I suspect that someone in this case must not have carried through with the
schedules and delivered the information to the local Registrar (how many other couples might that have happened to, I wonder?). I have not told my cousin yet that there is no official record of their marriage (well, at least no entry in the marriage registers themselves). They have probably never requested a copy of their marriage certificate and are probably blissfully unaware of the situation. I wrestled with the idea of telling them but since then have not been able to do anything about it as in early 2001 I suddenly found myself transported to Arizona from Edinburgh (long story!) and am no longer able to visit NRH as I had done very regularly throughout the 90s!
Unrecorded - not necessarily irregular - marriages.....
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eilthireach
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DavidWW
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Eilthireach
You could try a letter to GROS to see if there is an extent schedule that somehow never made it into the register, - they still have them all in NRH, - nothing ventured, nothing gained. In the case of the 1972 marriage there is certainly something to be investigated
NB The local registrar may still have a record of the banns. Thinking about it I'm not sure of the current process, - if it's a registry office wedding there has to be a notice in the office for a certain period of time, but does the registrar still have to be notified when the banns are proclaimed in a church?
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/regscot/ ... index.html is an interesting read, and if the process was the same in 1972 then the local registrar may still have the copies of the form M10 or whatever it was in 1972.
For the earlier "lost" marriage, however, I suspect that a missing/mislaid schedule is not the only possibility, and some of these may also apply to 1972.
Firstly, my prime candididate would still be an irregular marriage which was never formalised in the sense of the necessary procedure via the Sheriff or higher Court or JP, - a warrant or a conviction for the JP route, - on the basis of which the registrar would make an entry in the marriage register.
In the case of many irregular marriages which never resulted in an entry in the register, it very common to see variations in the date as reported on the children's birth register entries. Not that this doesn't also happen in the case of regular marriages, especially when the husband is the informant
, just that it's more frequent in the case of irregular marriages as they didn't have "marriage lines" on which to check the date !
Secondly, either a mistake in the indexing procedure leading to a wrong name in the index, - but there would have to have been an error in both names for the record to be untraceable, - or a simple omission from the index, i.e. it's there in the register but the indexer missed it out.
Thirdly, a low battery in the hearing aid of the minister
, or too much strong stuff the night before, leading to his entering wrong information on the schedule. In other words the correct procedure was followed, but the information was wrong, but, again, there'd have to have been errors relating to both the bride and groom .........
Lastly, a most unusual one...... were they members of the Glassites or similar?, who didn't approve of state "interference" in their life, and sometimes refused to supply information on BMDs (see http://www.bartleby.com/65/gl/Glas.html )....
There's probably a couple of possibilities that I haven't covered
David
You could try a letter to GROS to see if there is an extent schedule that somehow never made it into the register, - they still have them all in NRH, - nothing ventured, nothing gained. In the case of the 1972 marriage there is certainly something to be investigated
NB The local registrar may still have a record of the banns. Thinking about it I'm not sure of the current process, - if it's a registry office wedding there has to be a notice in the office for a certain period of time, but does the registrar still have to be notified when the banns are proclaimed in a church?
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/regscot/ ... index.html is an interesting read, and if the process was the same in 1972 then the local registrar may still have the copies of the form M10 or whatever it was in 1972.
For the earlier "lost" marriage, however, I suspect that a missing/mislaid schedule is not the only possibility, and some of these may also apply to 1972.
Firstly, my prime candididate would still be an irregular marriage which was never formalised in the sense of the necessary procedure via the Sheriff or higher Court or JP, - a warrant or a conviction for the JP route, - on the basis of which the registrar would make an entry in the marriage register.
In the case of many irregular marriages which never resulted in an entry in the register, it very common to see variations in the date as reported on the children's birth register entries. Not that this doesn't also happen in the case of regular marriages, especially when the husband is the informant
, just that it's more frequent in the case of irregular marriages as they didn't have "marriage lines" on which to check the date !Secondly, either a mistake in the indexing procedure leading to a wrong name in the index, - but there would have to have been an error in both names for the record to be untraceable, - or a simple omission from the index, i.e. it's there in the register but the indexer missed it out.
Thirdly, a low battery in the hearing aid of the minister
, or too much strong stuff the night before, leading to his entering wrong information on the schedule. In other words the correct procedure was followed, but the information was wrong, but, again, there'd have to have been errors relating to both the bride and groom .........Lastly, a most unusual one...... were they members of the Glassites or similar?, who didn't approve of state "interference" in their life, and sometimes refused to supply information on BMDs (see http://www.bartleby.com/65/gl/Glas.html )....
There's probably a couple of possibilities that I haven't covered
David
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gzmcwherter
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Hello,
I had a similar experience with a couple who married in 1869 in Dundee. The children's births were registered and the date of the parent's marriage noted but could not find the record on SP. I later found out the husband was a Quaker which leads me to believe that the marriage was never officially recorded. (I subsequently managed to obtain a copy of an entry for the marriage from the Edinburgh Meeting records [even though the marriage took place in Dundee] held at the Library at Friends House in London).
Their son who was also a Quaker married in 1905 and that marriage is recorded as taking place "by declaration" and "by warrant of the Sheriff Substitute" which I believe means that it was an irregular marriage. I had all sorts of romantic notions involving elopements before I learned what an irregular marriage was.
I have since learned that of the parents of the 1869 groom, the father was a Baptist and the mother was a Quaker. No wonder I couldn't find him in the OPRs!
Regards,
Gina
I had a similar experience with a couple who married in 1869 in Dundee. The children's births were registered and the date of the parent's marriage noted but could not find the record on SP. I later found out the husband was a Quaker which leads me to believe that the marriage was never officially recorded. (I subsequently managed to obtain a copy of an entry for the marriage from the Edinburgh Meeting records [even though the marriage took place in Dundee] held at the Library at Friends House in London).
Their son who was also a Quaker married in 1905 and that marriage is recorded as taking place "by declaration" and "by warrant of the Sheriff Substitute" which I believe means that it was an irregular marriage. I had all sorts of romantic notions involving elopements before I learned what an irregular marriage was.
I have since learned that of the parents of the 1869 groom, the father was a Baptist and the mother was a Quaker. No wonder I couldn't find him in the OPRs!
Regards,
Gina
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DavidWW
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Thanks for that. I wasn't previously aware that the Quakers didn't agree with providing info to the state.gzmcwherter wrote:Hello, I had a similar experience with a couple who married in 1869 in Dundee. The children's births were registered and the date of the parent's marriage noted but could not find the record on SP. I later found out the husband was a Quaker which leads me to believe that the marriage was never officially recorded. (I subsequently managed to obtain a copy of an entry for the marriage from the Edinburgh Meeting records [even though the marriage took place in Dundee] held at the Library at Friends House in London).
I'd have to do some digging in the relevant legisation, but I think that a Quaker member wasn't acceptable at that point as the celebrant of a marriage, so that the only option open to the couple was an irregular marriage. Whether this was a purely private ceremony, or in the presence of other members of the meeting house, I don't know, I'm not familiar with Quaker procedures, but, whatever, all they had to do was make a declaration to each other, preferably but not an absolute requirement in terms of Scots law in the presence of witnesses, that they were married, and they were!gzmcwherter wrote:Their son who was also a Quaker married in 1905 and that marriage is recorded as taking place "by declaration" and "by warrant of the Sheriff Substitute" which I believe means that it was an irregular marriage. I had all sorts of romantic notions involving elopements before I learned what an irregular marriage was.
In this case they then went along to a Sheriff Court, any one in the whole country not necessarily the local one, along with their witnesses, or sworn declarations from them, and apply for a warrant, which was then taken along to the local registrar, which allowed him to make an entry in the statutory register of marriages.
David
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Skywave
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- Location: Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland
Hi All,
Here is one for you my father John Allan Hamilton married Margaret Meikle McSkimming on the 27th October 1927. I have the proclamation of Banns for both Parishes with the Ministers signature stating they were married on the above date, further more I have the Certificate of Marriage duly signed by the Registrar. Try a search you wont find it on the index.
Here is one for you my father John Allan Hamilton married Margaret Meikle McSkimming on the 27th October 1927. I have the proclamation of Banns for both Parishes with the Ministers signature stating they were married on the above date, further more I have the Certificate of Marriage duly signed by the Registrar. Try a search you wont find it on the index.