On Thursday 01 July 2010 08:51:29 Eugene & Deirdre Blunt wrote: > Hi Alan, > > You have a good point there, and I hadn't actually thought of it. But I do > recall on numerous occasions whilst going through microfilms that the same > name often appeared as a witness to numerous marriages. This is usually > when that person is a warden of the church or something similar. > Quite often the parish clerk was one of the witnesses. After all he often recorded the marriage in the register rather than the vicar himself. There are also "professional" witnesses who may not have been paid but were probably living next door and could be grabbed at short notice. Note that non-family witnesses would be literate and that restricts the choice in many rural parishes. -- ==== Michael Lightfoot Canberra, Australia michael.lightfoot@pcug.org.au ====