Deciphering a marriage record

[rossm]

Hello all,

Having been lurking in the forums for some time now, I thought it was time to make my first posting. Whilst writing up the details of part of my family tree today I noticed a detail I hadn't spotted before in the marriage record of my G-G-Grandfather Hugh Burns and his wife Helen Kinloch. There's an extra line of text in the section normally used for the signature of the parties, and after much screwing up of eyes and zooming in and out I've managed to convince myself that it says "No Relationship".

http://i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag2 ... eccce3.png

So my questions are (assuming I've deciphered correctly): has anybody seen this noted on a marriage record before, and what does it mean? My only thought is that it's a confirmation that Hugh and Helen are not related, but surely this is normally implicit?

My supplementary question is whether there's any significance in the marital status being noted as 'Single'. Most of the records I've come across say 'Bachelor' or 'Spinster', indeed the next record on the same page has the parties listed as Bachelor and Spinster, but Hugh and Helen are both listed as Single. Is the wording just down to personal preference?

Cheers

Ross

[WilmaM]

Welcome to Talking Scot Ross

I agree that the 'single' rather than 'bachelor/spinster/widow' is unusual - I don't think I've seen that before - other than in recent years [my own MC for instance ].

As for the No Relation addition - that is certainly what it looks like.
I'm not sure if I've come across that before - I did check my Bennie-Bennie marriage and nothing of that nature was noted, I believe they were 2nd or 3rd cousins.
Have you traced the 2 families to see if there could be a close relationship somewhere among the parents? ie were they stepchildren where widowed parents had wed and children did too [I know of a recent similar situation that raised eyebrows but the children were adults and never lived under the same roof. There are some situations where non-blood related couples are prevented from marriage perhaps this was similar but proven to be otherwise
there is a list of present-day restrictions to be found here: http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files2/r ... eaflet.pdf [at end of the page]

Could you post the whole page? in case there are clues there to the riddle.

[garibaldired]

Hello Ross,

I have a marriage from Ballingry, Fife in 1879 where both bride and groom are described as single. That's my only example.
I wonder whether it does have any significance.
When does your marriage date from?

Best wishes,
Meg

[rossm]

Hi Wilma

Thanks for that link. That list of unlawful relationships was actually a bit of a surprise. I wasn't aware of the restrictions for 'Relationship by Affinity' or 'Relationship by Adoption'.

The problem I have with Hugh Burns is that he's actually one of the sticking points I have in my research, in that I can't trace his ancestors with any certainty. His marriage record lists his parents as William Burns and Helen Adams. His death record says that William Burns is his 'reputed father', whilst his mother is Isabella Adams (I've discounted Isabella as being an error, given that it was registered by the Poor House Governor and therefore being secondhand information).

All of the records I have for Hugh point to him being born in Auchtermuchty between 1833 and 1834 (his marriage, death and four censuses are all pretty consistent for calculating this). The closest record I can find, for 15/1/1833 is for a Hugh Burns being born to William Burns and Helen Adie. Intriguingly, the previous entry in the register is for a son (Edward) being born to Thomas Adams and Helen Adie.

This of course, set my brain cells firing. Did Helen Adie have an illegitimate son with William Burns, before marrying Thomas Adams and having another son. The problem with that theory is that the two boys are born only 7 months apart. The other possibility is a transcription error, perhaps whoever has written the register has mistakenly written Helen Adie's name twice instead of Helen Adams, or has just got the dates of the births wrong. I thought this might be possible as these two records seem to be retrospective entries made in 1835 for births in 1833.

So, to cut my long story short, I can't say for sure who William's parents were. I've found him in the 1851 census, living as a lodger with the Smith family in Auchtermuchty. Frustratingly I can't find him in the 1861 census, which is the one immediately before his marriage in 1863. I can say for certain he wasn't living with the Kinloch family though, as I do have Helen's 1861 census where she's living with her widowed mother and siblings. I believe the 1841 census for Auchtermuchty doesn't exist.

Helen Kinloch's parents were James Kinloch and Anne Suttie. A further generation back has her grandparents as Thomas Kinloch / Jean Hutchison and John Suttie / Jean White. So there's no obvious link to any Burns/Adams or Adie families. The possibility that he might have been adopted by the Kinloch family is intriguing though. Anybody have any thoughts on how I might go about proving/disproving that?

Cheers

Ross

[rossm]

Hi Meg,

Mine was an 1863 marriage record (from Auchtermuchty). Having posted that statement about not having seen 'Single' used on a marriage record before, I thought I better go back and check my records and found another one, thereby proving myself wrong

This other record (1876 marriage between John Muirhead and Margaret Stewart) has the Groom listed as 'Single', with the bride listed as 'Spinster', which I thought was an even odder combination of terms. At the moment I'm guessing it's just whatever term the respective party chose to use. Does seem odd not to be consistent within a single record though.

Cheers

Ross

[rossm]

Sorry, I also meant to say I hadn't posted the whole image because I was wary of the copyright restrictions for posting images downloaded from SP. I thought I had better limit it to the bit I was having trouble reading.

Anybody got any advice on the extent of what we can post for an image? Is it OK to do the whole thing if we're just looking for help deciphering something?

Ross

[WilmaM]

There's no problem about posting the full image here, the complete page often helps with context and handwriting.

I had looked at the IGI and Freecen and come to the conclusion it was an Auchtermuchty marriage we were talking of, but came up a blank when looking for them on the census.

I found Helen in 1851:

Piece: SCT1851/406 Place: Auchtermuchty -Fife Enumeration District: 6
Civil Parish: Auchtermuchty Ecclesiastical Parish, Village or Island: Auchtermuchty
Folio: 0 Page: 36 Schedule: 133
Address: Back Dykes
KINLOCH James Head M M 47 Hand Loom Weaver Fife - Auchtermuchty(Originally: Fife - Auchty)
KINLOCH Ann Wife M F 45 Wife Of Fife - Auchtermuchty(Originally: Fife - Auchty)
KINLOCH May Dau U F 18 Hand Loom Weaver Fife - Auchtermuchty(Originally: Fife - Auchty)
KINLOCH Janet Dau U F 16 Hand Loom Weaver Fife - Auchtermuchty(Originally: Fife - Auchty)
KINLOCH Helen Dau U F 14 Hand Loom Weaver Fife - Auchtermuchty(Originally: Fife - Auchty)
KINLOCH James Son - M 12 Scholar Fife - Auchtermuchty(Originally: Fife - Auchty)
KINLOCH Matilda Dau - F 10 Scholar Fife - Auchtermuchty(Originally: Fife - Auchty)
KINLOCH William Son - M 8 Scholar Fife - Auchtermuchty(Originally: Fife - Auchty)
KINLOCH John Son - M 6 Scholar Fife - Auchtermuchty(Originally: Fife - Auchty)
KINLOCH Taylor Son - M 3 Fife - Auchtermuchty(Originally: Fife - Auchty)

Quite a large family, have you looked at who her elder siblings married, or found them in the 1861 census. Her father obviously died between 1851 and 1861, was her Mother still a widow at the time of the marriage?

If a Mr Burns was Hugh's 'reputed father' then he may well be found on his birth or census records under his mother's name - and his birth may indeed not be recorded in the Parish Records.

[nelmit]

Hi Ross,

I'm not quite sure if you have this info or not but it looks as though Hugh is staying with his mum at Kinross in 1861. I know his age is way out (her age is way out too) but I'm pretty sure it's him.

Helen Barclay 40 born Dunblane Perthshire
Helen Barclay 14 daughter born Orwell, Kinross
Betsey White 5 Niece's daughter
Hugh Burns 23 son, Damask Weaver born Auchtermuchty

There is a death registered in 1874 of a Helen Barclay / Adams at Kinross - hopefully it has been registered by Hugh.

Regards,
Annette

[nelmit]

I see Hugh named a son John Barclay Burns which makes me more sure the 1861 family is correct as Helen is with her husband John Barclay in 1851.

After a rummage around indexes I think Thomas Adams and Helen Adie may have been Hugh's grandparents.

Regards,
Annette

[rossm]

Hi Annette,

You're a star - I do believe you've cracked it. Unfortunately Helen Adam's death has been registered by her son-in-law rather than Hugh, but it does confirm that Thomas Adams and Helen Eadie were her parents. It's funny - I was looking at John Barclay Burns in my tree last night and wondering idly where 'John Barclay' had come from. Now we know

As you say, the only thing which doesn't fit is Hugh's age in the 1861 census (also explains why I didn't find him, of course). He would have been 27 or 28 rather than 23. I can only assume that his mother was a little bit creative with her own age. She was 49, claiming to be 40, and then couldn't very well admit to having a 28 year old son.

I'm still a little bit curious why the "No relationship" statement is on Hugh's marriage record. I did as Wilma suggested and looked up Helen Kinloch's elder sisters, but they both appear to have married into completely unrelated families. However, armed with this new information about Adams/Eadies and Barclays it gives me much more to look into.

Time for me to stock up on credits and do more digging.

Cheers for everyone's help so far - I knew I should have de-lurked much sooner

Ross