I have noted that at least two-thirds of my ancestors married on these five days, all were from Virginia and later, Piedmont North Carolina. "Planters" worked year round in preparing their fields, seeding, planting, growing, and harvesting. With the cold winters ahead, food had to be preserved in various ways. Cold weather brought livestock slaughtering for their yearly meat supply. Planters had less demanding work to do around the winter holidays, therefore this was the best time for him and his "lady" to be married, before the "fields" cycle started all over again. Most popular dates: December 19.... December 24..... December....25..... December 26....... January 1.... Why not study the most popular days and months that your ancestors married on? Something interesting to do when you can not break down a brick wall, or when the weather is too "dreary and cold" to do anything outside of the house? ==== NCORANGE Mailing List ==== Larry Noah - lrnoah@bigfoot.com - Listowner - NCORANGE mailing list Orange Co, NC USGenWeb site is at http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncorange GENDEX at http://www.gendex.com/gendex/ has over 1500 databases on line