Gretna Green Marriages

[RJ_Paton]

It doesn't make sense to me.
In that list there are records up to 1940 but surely any marriage (whether regular or irregular) has to be registered to qualify for tax allowances and any other benefits.

Tax benefits etc are a fairly modern device - and don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia.(mob rule encyclopedia)

The records maintained post 1855 and which are now available on Scotland's People are the records of marriages conducted under the legal system of Scots Law. Irregular marriages while accepted in Scots Law  were technically outside the legal processes - although there were mechanisms to have such marriages legally acknowledged - if the couple wished to do so.

For many marriage was a personal matter between the couples and stuff the authorities 

The vast majority of "irregular" marriages were never recorded and so called percentages are simply guesswork - The Borders area was unique in maintaining their own records of possibly the majority of irregular marriages in their areas - after all it was a lucrative business for them. Unfortunately the records were privately owned business records and not State or Church property.

The three most common forms recognised are as follows :
http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/economicsocialhistory/historymedicine/scottishwayofbirthanddeath/marriage/
 

    A couple were legally married if they declared themselves to be so in front of witnesses, regardless of whether this was followed by a sexual connection. Marriage contracted in this way without witnesses was also legal, but much harder to prove in court unless there was other evidence, such as letters that confirmed what the couple had done.

    A promise of marriage, followed by a sexual relationship, was regarded as a legal marriage - but this had to be backed up by some kind of proof, such as a written promise of marriage, or an oath sworn before witnesses.

    Marriages 'by habit and repute' were also legal if a couple usually presented themselves in public as husband and wife, even if no formal declaration of marriage was made.

 A letter of intent of marriage followed by a written acceptance was also acceptable (under very limited circumstances) but over the years these forms of marriage were discarded by law until the last form "by habit and repute" was finally abolished in 2006

[Treetotal]

I hope I didn't waste my time and detract from the main issue here 
Carol

[Gan Yam]

Carol the picture is nice to see.  The marriage room is still there and looks much the same. It still does weddings with anvil and piper.

It is not the only marriage room.  There is one in Gretna just as you cross the border about 15 foot over the border. It used to be a toll cottage and marriage room.  It's a tea room now.

I think Cumbria archives holds a list of some Gretna marriages, sure I saw it on the shelf.

[RJ_Paton]

I hope I didn't waste my time and detract from the main issue here 
Carol

Quite the contrary, it added to the rich mix. Thank you.
I especially liked the "marriage certificate" I hadn't seen one of those before.

[Treetotal]

I'm pleased that you both enjoyed seeing them, I think I will put it on my list of places to visit. 
Carol

[Forfarian]

My reading of that is that a sixth of all weddings in Scotland are performed at Gretna Green.
If that is true then wow!

I don't think so. I found that too hard to believe so I did a wee bit of analysis of the marriage indexes at SP.

I looked at marriages of people with the 10 commonest surnames in Scotland according to a little booklet titled 'Personal Names in Scotland' and published by the Registrar General in 1991. For each surname I noted how many marriages were registered in the whole of Scotland from 1855 onwards, and how many of those were registered in Gretna, which is also known as Graitney. These are the results:

Surname   Total          at Gretna   % at Gretna
Smith   93085   3373          3.6
Brown   68147   1596          2.3
Wilson   62642   1256          2.0
Stewart   51010   626          1.2
Thomson   55044   443          0.8
Campbell   54321   656          1.2
Robertson   57183   457          0.8
Anderson   50075   310          0.6
Scott    40437   759          1.9
Macdonald   28919   273          0.9
all 10    560863   9749          1.7

So just 1.7% of marriages of people with the ten commonest surnames in Scotland were in the Gretna registration district. That is about one in sixty, not one in six.

One detail that is intriguing is that 3.6% of Smiths get married at Gretna, which is double the overall percentage and over 50% higher than the next highest.

I'm sure that, given the time and enthusiasm, one could extract a lot more in the way of statistics from the SP indexes, but I reckon that is enough to give the lie to the 'one in six' myth.

[Rosinish]

Great pics Carol, love the Marriage Cert!

Even if one does not have a copy of a marriage, that cert. & pics would look great alongside the info.

I used to do family trees as presents & gathered old pics to add along with BMDs, of churches where baptised/married or old Farm pics of places they lived etc. which makes it look more like reading a book than just names & dates

It is indeed Rabbie Burns.

Annie

[Ruskie]

The postcards are excellent thanks for posting them Carol. There is something about old images which adds atmosphere and context which is good to see, despite them being later than the 1860s. How good would it be to have old images of every place discussed on rootschat? 

Regarding the high number of marriages performed at "Gretna Green" ... I also thought the numbers quoted by Wikipedia seemed overly high. Wouldn't there have been more English married there than Scottish due to the English marriage laws? Scottish laws were more relaxed so Scottish couples had no need to marry clandestinely at Gretna. Obviously some would have chosen to do so, but I wouldn't have thought anywhere near as many as English couples.

I have been to Gretna, but it was many moons ago and I can't remember too much about it, though it was very commercial as you would expect .... and probably even more so now   

[buckhyne]

The three most common forms recognised are as follows :
http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/economicsocialhistory/historymedicine/scottishwayofbirthanddeath/marriage/

What an informative link that is.
Here are a few snippets from it.

Marriages 'by habit and repute' were also legal if a couple usually presented themselves in public as husband and wife, even if no formal declaration of marriage was made.
Is this a ‘bidie-in’?

…In fact, irregular marriages notified to the registrar were infrequent in Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century, and fewer than 100 per year took place between 1855 and 1870. After that, the numbers rose steadily and then rapidly in the early twentieth century, until they accounted for over 12% of all Scottish marriages in the registers in 1914. They remained at this level until the Second World War…

…The high point of border marriages was probably the 1930s, in a less religious age, when motor transport and the expansion of local hotels made a visit to Gretna Green seem romantic and attractive…

I hope I didn't waste my time and detract from the main issue here 
Carol

Excellent photos .
I particularly like the Marriage Certificate