Thank you Vel, I appreciate your reply. Perhaps, the marriages I am looking for did not get recorded as they should have, But I will keep looking. This was a Catholic Family, I have found some of the Catholic marriages recorded and some that may of been civil ceremonies. My great grandmother was born to Catholic parents and they were all the children raised Catholic. I found her marriage there in MI. At some point she called herself a Christian Scientist and so did one of her children. I have been looking for some of her sisters marriage, they are in the censuses with their husbands and they did not move about after marriages.So all I have are the approximate dates. Pamela ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson D. Dysart" <vorbdysart@juno.com> To: <MI-GENEALOGY-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 6:46 PM Subject: Re: [MI-Genealogy] marriages > Christian Science church goers cannot be married in their own church as > there are no > ministers who can perform marriages. The church recommendation is that > they have a religious > marriage ceremony--but this would be done by clergy of another > denomination. The ceremony also would be held in the church where the > clergyman is in charge. The alternative would be a civil ceremony by a > justice of the peace OR a marriage (as was the case so often > long ago) in their home with a clergyman from another church officiating. > > Thus their marriage would be listed like any other in the state records. > EXCEPT I have > documentation of my ggrandparents marriage which I checked with the > church where > performed (these were not Christian Scientists). I found that the > minister who signed > the certificate was the correct one for the time, so the marriage did > occur==but > it never got recorded officially. Some counties were better at doing > this than others. > > Yours sincerely, Vel Dysart > > > ==== MI-GENEALOGY Mailing List ==== > MIGenWeb. Michigan Genealogy. > http://www.rootsweb.com/~migenweb/ > Locate resources, browse counties, search and contribute to special projects. > > ============================== > Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration > Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237 >