speleobat2 wrote:
I pulled up the OPR's for George Clerihew and Sophia Chalmers. Previously, I had purchased the OPR for Inverurie and that does say after the banns were proclaimed... they were married on the 13th of June.
I just purchased the OPR for Oyne which is very simple:
June 13 George Clerihew in this Parish and Sophia Chalmers in the Parish of Inverury were married.
It doesn't mention the banns and it does sound more like an announcement than a ceremony, but all the entries on this page read like this and surely some of them must have been marriages....
Carol
k
Hi Carol,
They are both recording the the fact that the marriage took place simply because banns must have been called in both parishes, not because they married twice. Banns were not always recorded in the registers, sometimes it was just the fact that they had married, or that a certain sum had been paid in contract money.
When you are really lucky, you will get a detailed record such as this for my 4xgreat grandparents in Perth:
"FEBRUARY 1798
Perth the Third of February One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety eight contracted William Paton, Soldier in the second battalion of Breadalbanes Fencibles and Christian Hay, Daughter to the Deceased Lauchlan Hay, Resident in Perth, Parties both in this Parish Elder Thomas Robertson
The Persons before named were regularly proclaimed and married the seventh day of February said year by Mr Duncan MacFarlan Minister of the Gaelic Chapel in Perth."
The Kirk Session records for Perth also give a note of how much they had to pay to the church for the privilege (CH2/521/26/485):
"7 March 1798 Contract Money
From William Paton and Christian Hay Three shillings and fourpence".
In fact, in some parishes, you will even get the names of cautioners standing guarantors that the parties will marry, subject to the forfeit of the contract money etc. But at the other extreme, you get ministers who very grudgingly recorded anything at all!
It is worth checking the kirk session registers in addition to the OPRs - as shown, these sometimes list payments received for the proclaiming of banns and/or contract money, and occasionally may add more info as to where the ceremony happened. In fact, many of the marriage records you download from SP are in fact records kept in the Kirk session minutes, and not from a birth register at all.
Some of the entries in the Oyne list will indeed have been marriages performed there, but the minister in Oyne was obviously just not as meticulous with his record keeping than some others in parishes elsewhere!
Chris
UPDATE: I should also add that it was possible to marry in a church without banns, if a certificate of proclamation was issued by the Session Clerk giving the minister authority to do so without the banns actually being called, though it became considerably harder to do so after 1825 when the General Assembly got a bit narked over it all!
