Genealogy Chat

Hi I have just came accross a marrage and it has a colom that says "If a regular marrage of officicating minister and witnesses if irregular date of ??? of Decuralor or of Sheriffs warrent".

Can anybody tell me what this means. Both of my relations that were married lived in Hamilton and they were married in Calton in Glasgow!!

It states in the colum i mentiond above "Warrant of Sheriff substitute of Lanarkshire"

All help would be greatfully accepted.

Thanks
Garry

Registry office weddings were not possible in Scotland till 1st July 1940.

If people did not want a church wedding AND who wanted a formal marriage cert ( they didnt have to have one) they married by declaration getting the Sherriff Substitute to certify the marriage had taken place.

Taking that documentary proof to the Registrar who would enter the marriage in the Statutory Register and issue the marriage cert

Thanks Guys!!!

I thought for a moment there that someone was up to something Dodgy..LOL!!!

Question! Why would anyone want to marry this way? and would there be a reason? The man in question was brought up as a Roman Catholic and all of his other family members have been married in the same chapel for over 100 years!!! And why would they have traveled all the way to Calton in Glasgow if they both lived in Hamilton.

Garry

Garry, perhaps he married 'out the faith', and went to Glasgow to keep it low key.
Julia in Derbyshire

Garry's missing wording is "If Irregular, Date of Conviction, Decree of Declaralor, or Sheriff's Warrant"

Marriage law in Scotland was somewhat different from England, especially until the late 1920s. Before that, no minister need officiate - you could marry yourselves, and no witnesses were required. Of course, usually there were witnesses, and usually someone did officiate. Whether the officiating person was a minister (or church-sanctioned substitute) or not was really what determined if the marriage was regular. Many regular marriages did not take place in a church, but in the parents' home, or a local hotel, or maybe even a large house if the couple both worked there. Perhaps the most well known examples of irregular marriages are the blacksmith-officiated "marriages over the anvil" of Gretna Green.
Irregular marrs only ceased in 2006 with the end of marriages "by cohabitation and repute" - what would be called common-law marriages in England, not that Scotland had a "common law". These were still a legal way of contracting a marriage, and they (and theoretically any of the earlier) marriages can still be registered.. There still are differences in marriage laws (and customs) between England and Scotland - perhaps the most noted is that there never has been any requirement for parental consent for any age in Scotland.

Thanks MGNV!!

G.