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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Midlothian => Topic started by: scintilla on Wednesday 14 December 11 11:09 GMT (UK)
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Forgive my ignorance of early 19th C Scottish marriages, but I have found an ancestor who married in Edinburgh. He was serving in the 27th Regiment in Edinburgh Castle and according to the OPR image I downloaded he and his intended "gave up their names for marriage" on 21 April 1813. From what I have read this is not the actual date of marriage, but more a statement of intent, similar to banns in England. Is this correct? Are there likely to be other records available for the marriage?
Sorry if this type of question has been covered before, I did a search but couldn't find an exact answer.
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You are right, it is similar to the banns in England. Sometime this might be the only record in the register of a marriage. You may find the actual marriage recorded in the Kirk Session records, but these are not available online.
Does it appear in any other parish? If this is the only one, then it indicates that the bride was resident in the same parish.
I have similar instances and I would say that you just treat this as the marriage date.
Nell
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Thanks for your reply Nell.
The actual words are "Timothy Howard, private in the 27th Reg. in the Castle and Elizabeth Anderson in Cramond, Daughter of Thos. Anderson, Shoemaker also there" But if I select Cramond and her name in a Scotlands People search there are no matches.
It is a bit of a puzzle since I have a newspaper report of him joining the 27th Regiment on 1 April 1813 from the Northamptonshire Militia and 3 weeks later he appears intent on marrying a Scottish girl. It may be that the record of his enlisting is out of date information and he may have joined earlier. I was trying to see if there was any other information that I could dig out.
scintilla
edit: forgot to say the marriage details are from Canongate parish
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traditional in the church of Scotland the Banns have to read 3 times (3 Sunday's before the wedding), so that everyone is informed and objection raised (unless granted a special licence).
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I suppose it is possible that the entry may be missing or illegible in the Cramond register. Nothing is perfect :-\
The books that I have looked at indicate that licences were not issued in Scotland prior to a marriage.
Nell
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Thanks for the replies. So it does look as though Cramond should have had a record of them "giving up their names" for marriage. From what I can see there should be records for the parish from 1651 for marriages. I wonder if as you say there perhaps is a problem with the records for the time I'm interested in. Well I'll keep it in mind, perhaps something will turn up in the future.
scintilla
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Just found on the FamilySearch website details on the condition of Cramond Registers;
Marriages: There are no entries July 1719–October 1726, December 1761–June 1767. After record for 1819, are transcribed entries, certified by the sheriff, mainly of irregular marriages, 1689–1819.
Am I right in understanding that Scotlands People used the LDS FamilySearch indexes as the basis for the indexes on their own site and if there is a problem with the FS index it will be the same case in SP?
scintilla
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They may be the same, but the search engine is different and so does always not pick up the same things in the same way.
I think it would not be fair to say that because you can't find it in the index, there is something wrong with the index. It may not be there in the first place to be indexed!
Nell
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Hi, scintilla,
I think that it was an Irregular marriage and they would be married quick that was the way to do it, at that time Britain was at War with Napoleon so he would have had his marching orders, they could take their vows anywhere, a house, Pub or whatever as long as they had two witnesses.
The downside to this type of marriage was the Church did not recognise it and if they had children the Church would not baptize them not unless the parents got married in the Church first, at times this is why we are unable to get births for some children.
Cheers.
Archie.
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Thanks for that Archie. I did wonder about an irregular marriage when I saw that reference in the condition of Cramond registers. It could well be the case.
If I have the right Timothy Howard, then the child from the marriage - my 2xgreat grandfather was baptised in England.
scintilla