Don - How strange, never come across this one and her father being a schoolteacher makes this quite interesting! When you say "Marriage Certificate" this is of course not like those issued after 1837, so was it predefined form or something hand written like other entries in the Marriage Register? Are the other entries on the same or nearby pages in a similar vein? Do they also display occupations? Roy -----Original Message----- From: old-english-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:old-english-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Donald Tomkinson Sent: 02 October 2008 06:35 To: OLD ENGLISH MESSAGE Subject: [OEL] SCHOOLMASTER's DAUGHTER On a marriage certificate of 1791 the bride makes her mark. It is possible that her father was a schoolmaster, but if so it seems odd that she could not write. It is possible that the clerk assumed that she was illiterate and asked her to make the cross which she did. However, would it have been unusual in those days if a country schoolmaster had not taught his daughter to write? I'd appreciate opinions. Don Tomkinson ==================================== WEB PAGE: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~oel/ ARCHIVES: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=OLD-ENGLISH ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to OLD-ENGLISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message