Banns and Marriage Cert Query

[andyg]

Hi there, I am trying to find a marriage Certificate of John Aitken and Ann Smith from Duddingston. Searching on the Scotlands People website i have managed to find the Banns 9/8/1845 but I am not able to find the marriage certificate. Is this unusual? Would the banns be read at the same church as the wedding was to be held? They show in the 1951 Census as being married so i dont know what has happened
Any thoughts please

Andy

[Ken_R]

Not uncommon for the Banns to be read at one Church and the Marriage to take place at another. Normally the Church announcing the Banns will issue a Certificate to be produced at the other Church.

[Ken_R]

There is a Marriage on Family Search 15 Aug 1845 Duddingston that may refer.

[arthurk]

Civil registration didn't begin in Scotland until 1855, so before that you won't be able to get a marriage certificate, but instead will have to rely on church registers. These are usually referred to as Old Parish Registers (OPRs), originally kept by the Church of Scotland. (There were various other denominations as well, and some of their registers survive, but I don't know whether they ever included marriages.)

The information in OPRs relating to marriages is quite variable. Some record the actual marriage, and some just the proclamation (equivalent of banns), and some both. The proclamation is usually something like "... and ... gave up their names in order to marriage", and if one party was from another parish, that may be mentioned. In that case, it's a good idea to look for a proclamation there as well. A "marriage" record at Family Search is often just the proclamation, and you need to check the OPR to find out which it is.

For one couple in my family, I have two proclamations in different parishes, but nothing at all to indicate when, where (or even whether) the marriage took place. However, OPR baptism entries often indicate that children were "lawful" (ie legitimate), from which it is possible to infer that a marriage did take place somewhere. And under civil registration, birth registrations in 1855 included the parents' marriage date and place; this was dropped the following year, but reinstated in 1861.

Please note that I don't consider myself an expert on Scottish registers and registration, and this shouldn't be taken as definitive of either the law or the most common practice. It does, however, reflect things that I have noticed in the course of my own research and found in books.

Arthur

[andyg]

Thanks for your response Arthur. The record i was looking at was as you suggested a proclamation. The next census shows them as husband and wife and her death certificate also shows him as the widow so i guess its ok to assume they did get married as all evidence points towards this.

[andyg]

Thats the one - thank you so much