Further to the apposite postings by Anne and Gavin about irregular marriages I myself doubt whether the incidence of such marriages was very high in the localities where I have done most of my research that is in the the northern parts of Aberdeenshire and in neighbouring Banffshire particularly where the parents offered their children up for baptism. In my opinion having looked at hundreds of OPRs mainly for Cairney, Glass, Huntly and neighbouring parishes I think that missing marriage records are more to do with records lost and records not being registered due to various circumstances such as not belonging to the established church or the established church being without a minister or session clerk owing to the church politics and doctrinal differences of the day. Or a Session Clerk who writes on tiny scraps of paper instead of in abook like the some of the 1750s entries for Cairney. How many were lost? >From the point of view of family history and church records it is worth noting that prior to the1834 Marriage (Scotland) Act ministers who were not part of the established Church of Scotland (that is dissenting or secessionist ministers) could *not* perform "regular marriages" . After 1834 they were allowed to perform marriages provided the banns had been read out in the established parish church. This changed in 1855. A rough definition of secessionists or seceders is those who broke away from the established church but are still presbyterian in how they organise the breakaway church and broadly "calvanistic" in doctrine. Dissenters on the other hand were in churches which were not presbyterian in church government and would cover Episcopalian, Baptists, Congregationalists and Methodists often referred to as Wesleyan. The Methodists did not make much headway in this part of Scotland because they were not Calvinistic in the doctrine of atonement but Arminian The history of the church in Scotland is a history of breakaways and schisms. In the 1730s the Seceesion Church was formed and then it split with the Anti-Burghers church as a break away. In the 1750s the Relief Church is formed ( it kept its own records). The first Secessionist congregation in our area was formed at Cabrach in 1761 with the church building being erected in 1772 This was followed by a church in Keith with George Cowie being ordained in 1771 as the minister of the combined secessionist congregations of Cabrach, Keith, Grange and Huntly.. During this period there also appeared small Congregationalist or Independent churches. All this has had an effect on the OPRs of this area and we have sometimes to look to Kirk Session records and other sources for information about our families here.The next busy period in Scottish church history is in the 1830s and the run up to the Disruption in 1843 when the Free Church was formed when a large part ( over 400 ministers) of the estabished church walked out. In 1847 the Seccesionist and Relief Churches came together in the United Presbyterian Church. In 1990 the United Presbyterian Church and The Free Church of Scotland came together as the United Free Church of Scotland. Of course at each union there were those who did not agree with the merger and saw themselves as the true remnant of the church. The last big union was in 1929 when the United Presbyterian Church came back into the fold of the Church of Scotland which by this time although deemed the "national" Church in Scotland was no longer the "established" church in the way it had been after the reformation with its links to the state, All these movements within the church has had its effects on the records which we can access today. For instance I have parish records of the birth and baptisms of four children to George Brander and Ann Durno in Huntly from 1841 to 1854 which state that they were named and baptised before the F C congregation ie Free Church. But they did not appear in the Parish Register until 1854 having been entered retrospectively. Fortunate for Brander researchers but how many more births of that period were not entered in the parish register. George Brander in Huntly had a certain social standing in the community which may have led him to approach the Parish church to have his children entered on the register but how many did not bother. In the records of Ordiquhill there is a note attached to the session book from James Brander the blacksmith where he lists the names of his five children their birthdates and where they were born from 1834 to 1844. He writes* "Sir you will have the goodness to correct this yourself as it is not in may power to come over"* He then adds a terse side note *"put this in the sesion book"* Another example of retrospective entries! From the tone of the note i do not think relations betwen James Brander and the Session Clerk were all that good. I also have records of numerous births and baptisms at Glass between 1759 and registration in 1855, most of which mention the name of the "wife" but there are no corresponding Marriage records for Glass between 1796 and 1838! But I am sure that most of these births were from regular marriages. regards George On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Gavin Bell <g.bell@which.net> wrote: > Anne Burgess wrote: > > > > >>Many people belonged to other Christian groups other than the > >>main churches > >>Anglican, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic. > > > > Not true in Scotland, by and large. There were historically very > > few people who did not belong to one or another of these groups. > > > > > Great minds obviously think alike - but your messages are still coming > up with the wrong date (this one says 6th February). This means that > (on my machine at least) your messages do not appear at the top of my > Inbox, and have to be rummaged for, so there is a danger of wasting your > substance on the desert air. > > > Gavin > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > MORAY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message > -- George Brander Torre de la Horadada España

Somewhere in my books of notes I have taken from films of OPR's, I took note of 2 marriages in which the couples were called to the Kirk Session Meetings and questioned on their marriages. They had not been married by the local Minister, and they confessed to being married by a 'Papist' Minister in Mortlach, I think. I just can't put my hands on the info, but I thought it odd at the time. Brander is in my Shearer tree, from Huntly, and my GGG grandmother was from Cairnie; also I have roots in Gartly parish. My personal opinion of some of the Kirk Session minutes is that many of them were 'a law unto themselves'...meaning they took it upon themselves to pass judgment on the Kirk members. While I realize this was their purpose, they set themselves above being judged. The Good Book tells us not to judge others, but some of them did and very harshly, and unfairly. But in the end, it is what it is, and we still have to be thankful they were God Abiding folks which has carried on down the lines. And also be thankful the old records are still around. For this I do give Thanks...I agree with what George has written ....Goldie ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Brander" <george.brander@gmail.com> To: <moray@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 6:40 AM Subject: Re: [MORAY] Irregular marriages. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MORAY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message