Prior to the first of January 1855, the established Church of Scotland was charged with the task of registering the births, marriages and deaths occurring in Scotland. Each parish had to keep registers. Those planning to marry were supposed to have that intention proclaimed from the pulpit of the parish church for their parish of residence ("proclamation of Banns"). Where the two parties belonged to different parishes, separate proclamations were supposed to be made in both churches.
Information about the marriage was supposed to be entered in the appropriate parish register(s). What tended to happen in practice was that the parish session clerk only wrote down details when he received word of a couple's intention to marry. What this means is that the dates given in the registers are often "booking" dates - i.e. dates when the intention was written down in the book. Proclamations dates (rarely recorded) would be shortly thereafter, and actual marriage dates a few days further on. Sometimes the actual dates of marriage were added in the register. Practices varied from parish to parish.
Because all intended marriages were supposed to be proclaimed from the established Parish Church pulpits regardless of denomination, it is fairly common to find that the Marriage Register contains details for members of other denominations too, though often there is no way of telling which are which. Marriages not proclaimed in this way were regarded as "irregular", and some social stigma might attach to people married irregularly. Having said that, it is rare to find pre-1855 marriages of Roman Catholics in the OPRs. There were few Roman Catholics in most parts of post-Reformation Scotland, however, until the 19th century.
The information on the following imaginary page from the imaginary Othertown Parish register should be regarded a follow-up to the position reached in the imaginary births register for that parish which you can see on the Parish Register births page. There we saw that Ivan Othername was born in 1829, a son of Noah Othername and his wife Ann Strangename. We have searched in the Othertown Parish Register of marriages, and have come to the following page:-
Some points of note about the above imaginary page:
- The size of volume kept by different parishes varied, and therefore so did the page size and the number of entries per page.
- The format of the entries given above is fairly typical, but there were considerable variations. Notice that the actual date of marriage is given for one entry, the fact of marriage (only) for another, and no statement about the actual marriage at all in the case of the first entry.
- In a very small number of cases where no actual marriage date is given, the couple may not, in fact, actually have married. Where you see that a particular session clerk invariably gives a marriage date, it is possible that the lack of one may be due to the couple belonging to another denomination, the outcome of the intended marriage not being known to the clerk.
- We are lucky that in the above instance all details of date are pretty clear. Sometimes you may have to scrutinise a number of adjacent pages to find the year and month referred to in the particular entry that interests you.
- Not all registers have a separate column for the surnames, and therefore take considerably longer to scan and search.
- "D.L." means "daughter lawful". We are lucky to find this parental information in a Scottish parish register of marriages. Parental information for bridegrooms is even rarer.
- In the case of the first marriage notice above there should also be an entry in the Dummerton Parish Register - and the actual marriage date may be given there; similarly the actual date of marriage for the third entry may be given in the Unexpected Parish Register. You could also expect not to find the bride's parentage there!
- In the case of the second entry above, you would maybe have to find birth records for any children born to the couple before knowing what the bride's first name was, though prior research may have revealed this already.
- Note that there are never any ages given in a Scottish parish register of marriages. The Colin Strangename who married Margaret Robertson could be the same man mentioned in Noah Othername's entry. Colin could be a widower, and this could be a second marriage, in middle age. Alternatively, Colin could be Anna's brother, or cousin. It seems likely that he is some relation, and further research might clear things up.
- Lucky people will come across sections of parish marriage registers where helpful session clerks have given all the elements of information in the above imaginary examples, along with occupations and maybe even the names of witnesses, some of whom could be relatives.
So what now? Before delving in to earlier sections of the Othertown registers, or trying the Unexpected register for the Othername family, perhaps it might be helpful to see who has survived till the time of the 1841 census, the first with recorded names. From Ivan Othername's 1829 birth record we know that Noah was a farmer in Smallholding, Othertown Parish. Will he be there in 1841? Go to the1841 Census Page to find out..
