Hi All
Let's put this one to bed for once and for all !
The images that we now see are taken from the Registers of Marriage.
Up to 1939, for a
regular marriage, the signatures in the marriage register entry aren't, - they are the transcriptions made from the Marriage Schedule by the registrar, who, most often, transcribed the signatures, and
not the full names, - although there will sometimes be found at the bottom of the page a faint pencil note of the full name, - and it would seem, when some of the GROS indexes were being made (in the first few months of the following year), that reference was sometimes made back to the original marriage schedules in order to correctly index a name. These Marriage Schedules still exist, but, legal enquiries apart (e.g. to check a signature), are
not open to the public.
There are only very occasional exceptions to this, most often deriving from situations involving serious blunders in the completion of the Marriage Schedules leading to the need for the whole situation to be re-visited, - in large registration districts any such
may be noted in the "Marriage Memo Books" which were kept in such large registration districts, but I have no idea if these Books are still extant.
For the registration of
irregular marriages, normally, both parties to the marriage had to present themselves at the registrar's office for the registration process required for an entry in the Register of Marriages based on the Sheriff's Warrant or other similar court warrant (Session or JP), and both parties actually signed the entry in the Register of Marriages. This wasn't a strict legal requirement, but established practice, and there are very occasional instances where the registrar accepted that only one party to the irregular marriage could attend, but, if the latter is the case, this will be shown clearly by an annotation by the Registrar on the entry in the Register of Marriages.
In the 1930s irregular marriages that were registered in the Register of Marriages were around 12.5% of the total. Anyone wishing to see how that proportion varied back to 1855 should consult the annual reports of the Registrars General of Scotland
Note that the above information and comments are based on my 20 years of experience of the Scottish records plus reference to G.T. Bisset-Smith's
Vital Registration - A Manual of the Law and Practice concerning The Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages: Registration Acts for Scotland; with Relative Notes on Vaccinations and the Census, Forms, and Tables of Fees &c., Edinburgh, William Green & Sons, Law Publishers, 1907.
After 1939, I don't have the same level of expertise, but believe that the same situation applied to church marriages (NB not necessarily conducted in the church itself, as a substantial proportion of marriages were still conducted at the bride's home, or other permitted locations).
After 1939 marriages in the registrar's office were permitted, and I would imagine, but cannot confirm, that the signatures shown on the image of the Marriage Register image are the actual signatures of the couple.
The only post-1939 irregular form of marriage permitted was that of "by habit and repute", and I have no idea at all as to whether any marriages confirmed by the required processes were then also retrospectively entered in the relevant Register of Marriages. (Note that a recent Act of Parliament has finally removed this form of irregular marriage.)
David
David W Webster FSA Scot
© David W Webster August 2006
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