Marriage witness

[Jang]

If a married woman was a witness to a marriage would she be more likely to use her married name or maiden name?
Jan

[emanday]

All I can tell you is that the ones whom I knew were married, and where I already knew their maiden names, used their married names when signing.

[Jang]

Thanks Mary, that makes sense to me. I did wonder though as married women seemed to use their maiden names a lot, especially in censuses.
Jan

[emanday]

Now I've never had any of mine use their maiden names on a census, but I believe some others on this forum have.

Of course, in Scotland, a woman was not required to take her husband's name, although most did seem to. It does, however, give us a second bite of the apple, so to speak, when searching for a Scottish female death certificate as they are indexed under both married and maiden name.

It's a great way of finding out who a woman rellie married I've found a lot of my ancestors' siblings' husbands and their children that way.

[Jang]

Silly me! I just had another look at the marriage certificate - it was the year before the witness was married so of course she used her maiden name.