General enquiry re marriages

[junket]

Could someone tell  me please, why so many couples from Somerset, married in Bristol, when their own Parishes had churches ?

We are finding so many of our families, marrying in St Mary Redcliffe and Bedminster churches when they are from Somerset villages.

Thank you.

[LizzieL]

What sort of time period is this?

[junket]

Just found one in 1848.

Have another, ( from the top of my head ) in 1829.
Also 1871 and 1883

I would say, the others are around those times too.  ( I will try to find more dates, if necessary )

[LizzieL]

Quite a lot later than the marriages I found in Dorset which all seemed to be people from neighbouring parishes. Mine were in the period of the Commonwealth (Oliver Cromwell).

Could be a number of reasons - cheaper fees or wanted to be away from immediate family - maybe one or both under 21 and could more easily lie about their age, or bride was pregnant.
Or could be just the fashionable thing to do.

I have a couple who both lived in same small town in Hertfordshire but went to London to marry, then returned home. The reason was probably that the groom was marrying his dead wife's sister.

Another groom that I thought lived in Yorkshire all his life married in London. I only had his baptism, baptisms of his children and his death all in Yorkshire and it was ages before I discovered the marriage. He was a valet for a rich gentleman with an estate in Yorkshire and a London house and he travelled with his master when he went between the two. He met a girl in London, married in a church close to his master's house, then they went back to Yorkshire to live.

Another couple from a small Berkshire village went up to London for a "Fleet" marriage (never worked out why on that one), similarly a couple from a village in Surrey. In that case the bride was under 21 and from a wealthy family, the groom was from a lower social class.

[Old Bristolian]

I have forebears from North Somerset marrying at St Johns, Bedminster in the 1770s. As LizzieL says, there were many possible reasons such as parental displeasure or because the fees were cheaper. Strictly is was not allowed by the Hardwicke marriage Act, but couples would "live" in the parish for three weeks to qualify. St Swithins, Bath was another popular church for Somerset couples

Steve

[PrawnCocktail]

We found several of ours from Northwich in Cheshire, in Warrington?!

They didn't have any honeymoons (those were for the rich), so we did wonder whether this was a day out just for the wedding.

To become "of this parish", what they apparently did was rent a room, and leave a bag of clothes there. That was enough to be able to put the banns up, and also why "of this parish" is of no use to us whatsoever when trying to trace them!

[smudwhisk]

I've found several couples from the Cheddar area marrying at Walcot St Swithin in the early 1800s with no known connection to the immediate area.  Always says "of this parish".

[junket]

Thanks everyone.

Each time we find one, we say, another couple, who got married in Bristol ...

The Parishes, weren't a bus trip away in those days and we often wonder how they got there and paid for it, as they weren't well off.

I'd heard of the renting a room and leaving a suitcase of clothes in the room ( courtesy of a drama  lol ).

Oh to be able to go back in time and have our questions answered.

[philheeks]

Hi There

If I remember it was mentioned at a U3A group I belong to that familysearch put a lot of Somerset marriages down as Bristol but I cant remember the details as I have no research to do in Somerset or Bristol so didn't pay a great deal of attention

All the very best

Phil