It's just me interjecting my naive and unscholarly opinion here, but I suppose one inference of finding evidence of ancestors following the banns procedure would be that the parties were fairly religious in the RDC and were rules-followers, not ones to shake things up. If no banns are found where they would be expected to be in spite of diligent searching, some inferences could be made that the parties had left the RDC and aligned themselves with a faith that does not have a process of speaking/ publishing banns; or maybe that they have removed to someplace else, at least for the period when the banns would be made; or that they were iconoclasts and had dropped out of religion altogether. Which brings to mind this question: was there a civil alternative in colonial New Netherlands for marriage? Or for the non-religious Dutch, was marriage one of those few times they absolutely had to step into a church? Positive information is always great to have, but many people fail to realize that there just might be value in negative information. ________________________________ > From: "llvk2@aol.com" <llvk2@aol.com> > > . . .Can anyone quote case studies to demonstrate. . .[2] how you felt it benefited you and / or your research?. . . > ==================================================================

This is just off the top of my head, but I do not believe that the government of New Netherland allowed for marriages by other churches than the Reformed (which included the English Calvinist churches -- Congregational and Presbyterian, and the French Calvinist church). In the absence of clergy, there were a few marriages in Esopus (Kingston) conducted by the court of magistrates. Lutherans and Catholics were not even allowed to gather for worship, or to hold a prayer service with non-family in the home, and any clergy that entered the colony were hurried off to friendlier climes. Peter -----Original Message----- From: dutch-colonies-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:dutch-colonies-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of juliasgenes Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2013 1:05 PM To: dutch-colonies@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [DUTCH-COLONIES] Marriage "registration" vs. "banns" (vs. marriage) It's just me interjecting my naive and unscholarly opinion here, but I suppose one inference of finding evidence of ancestors following the banns procedure would be that the parties were fairly religious in the RDC and were rules-followers, not ones to shake things up. If no banns are found where they would be expected to be in spite of diligent searching, some inferences could be made that the parties had left the RDC and aligned themselves with a faith that does not have a process of speaking/ publishing banns; or maybe that they have removed to someplace else, at least for the period when the banns would be made; or that they were iconoclasts and had dropped out of religion altogether. Which brings to mind this question: was there a civil alternative in colonial New Netherlands for marriage? Or for the non-religious Dutch, was marriage one of those few times they absolutely had to step into a church? Positive information is always great to have, but many people fail to realize that there just might be value in negative information. ________________________________ > From: "llvk2@aol.com" <llvk2@aol.com> > > . . .Can anyone quote case studies to demonstrate. . .[2] how you felt it benefited you and / or your research?. . . > ================================================================== ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DUTCH-COLONIES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi all, As I recall, marriage was not a sacrament in the Calvinist churches -- Reformed (including Dutch Reformed), the New England Puritans, etc. It was, thus, a civil matter. However, ministers could marry people, as well as could justices of the peace or magistrates. After the English took control in 1664, the Duke of York's Laws were promulgated in 1665. Here is the section on Marriages: http://books.google.com/books?id=ggQKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA45&dq=%22Whereas+by+the+law+of+England+no+marriage%22&lr=&as_brr=0 Note at the top of page 46: "...it shall be Lawfull for any Minister or for any Justice of Peace to joyne the Parties in Marriage..." (This is, of course, after the banns have been read 3 times.) Other than the marriage intentions and marriages shown in the various church records, there were many other places that pre-nuptial agreements, marriage intentions, marriage licenses, and marriages were recorded. Many marriage licenses are shown in: _Names of persons for whom marriage licenses were issued by the secretary of the province of New York, previous to 1784_, Albany : Weed, Parsons and Co., 1860. This was reprinted in 1968 with corrections and many additions. One of the additions is a list of marriages, etc. shown in O’Callaghan’s Calendar of Dutch Mss. and Calendar of English Mss. Some of these are from the Register of the Provincial Secretary and are called marriage contract. (Seems like its a combinational of pre-nup and marriage intentions.) Others are from the various volumes of Council Minutes and record an actual marriage by “the court”. In The Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to 1674 anno Domini, ed. by Berthold Fernow, Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1976 there are a few pages of banns entered before the Mayor of NY (vol. 6, pp. 262, 334, and 335). There are also marriages, marriage licences or both that were recorded in some of the will books and are in the Abstracts of Wills. I think there have been indications of marriages that were at least being planned in the Records of the Orphanmasters. Lastly, there is a list of Gravesend marriages from 1664 to 1702 in NYGBR vol 4, pp. 199-200. These were copied from the town books of Gravesend by Tunis Bergen. There may be more in other places; but this shows the variety of places were you can find (and should look for) marriage records. Regards, Howard hswain@ix.netcom.com From: juliasgenes Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2013 10:04 AM To: dutch-colonies@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [DUTCH-COLONIES] Marriage "registration" vs. "banns" (vs.marriage) It's just me interjecting my naive and unscholarly opinion here, but I suppose one inference of finding evidence of ancestors following the banns procedure would be that the parties were fairly religious in the RDC and were rules-followers, not ones to shake things up. If no banns are found where they would be expected to be in spite of diligent searching, some inferences could be made that the parties had left the RDC and aligned themselves with a faith that does not have a process of speaking/ publishing banns; or maybe that they have removed to someplace else, at least for the period when the banns would be made; or that they were iconoclasts and had dropped out of religion altogether. Which brings to mind this question: was there a civil alternative in colonial New Netherlands for marriage? Or for the non-religious Dutch, was marriage one of those few times they absolutely had to step into a church? Positive information is always great to have, but many people fail to realize that there just might be value in negative information.