Cor, Thank you!  I appreciate your reply and am very grateful for your information. We should all register it and apply it to our documentation. Speaking for myself, and in the progression of my research, I considered it of the most importance to have distinguished marriage dates from first dates of banns and to specify them in my research as different.  I see, however, that I'd misled myself: at least in the Reformed Church there are three essential marriage-related dates: registration of intent, then first announcement of banns (actually not specified), then marriage.  Succession of first to second to third Sunday banns pronouncements can be reasonably assumed, historically. According to what you've provided - of which I have no doubt - we should look at the registration dates on a historic calendar (by day of the week), identify the closest following Sunday and extend the banns process from there.  Yes? This is of greatest importance:  Who can clarify this for all, definitively?  We're lucky if we can make a dent in the marriage vs. banns debate - step in to claim the reality field.  How do we change the idea of the entire context?  The digital age of genealogy is a fill-in-the-blanks affair, and its degree of detail is beyond what we're talking about here.  Really:  what to do? N ----- Original Message ----- From: cor snabel Date: Wednesday, January 9, 2013 8:13 pm Subject: Re: [DUTCH-COLONIES] Marriage "registration" vs. "banns" (vs. marriage) To: dutch-colonies@rootsweb.com > Nancy & list > > On 9 January 2013 19:53, wrote: > > The early (17th-early 18th c.) church records of the NY and NJ > congregations usually record, unless otherwise specified, the > "registration" - registration of intent to marry - of a couple. > > > > Too many confuse these dates with dates of marriage. We know that. > > > > My question is: Am I correct in believing that the > registration of marriage intent does not equate to the date of > the first pronouncement of the banns? They're no doubt not far > off, but I don't believe that that means they're the same. > > > > Can anyone clarify this? > > I can speak for the rules in Amsterdam and I know the DRC in New > Netherland had to follow the same rules. > The registrations of the marriage intentions were during the > week and > the pronouncements were made in church on the three following Sundays. > In some marriage intentions you can read a note in the margin, that > they had to bring in the consent of the father before the first > pronouncement. > > So you are right, they're not the same. > > Regards > Cor Snabel > The Netherlands > > ------------------------------- > 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 >