G'day Robert, Scottish Marriage Registers are more orientated to the marriage contract (ie the Banns in England) than the marriage itself which is one reason why there are less records. Another reason is that "Hand-festing" was recognized by the State but not by the Church as a legal form of marriage. As a result the marriage may not have occurred in Church and thus no record kept in the church registers. Legal recognition to hand-fasted marriages was only withdrawn in 1939. David Armstrong Maylands, Western Australia ----- Original Message ----- From: Robert SLATER To: ORKNEY@rootsweb.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 6:56 PM Subject: [ORKNEY] Marriage by "Habit and Repute" I seem to be having a very bad run in attempting to locate Orkney marriages in the period 1750 to 1850 in the Old Parish Records. At the moment I am scoring well below 50%, and probably below 25%, even of those for whom later records (of baptisms) indicate that the parents were married. Is this a case of lost records, although the gaps are not apparent, just bad record keeping, although the baptisms seem to be much better, or were there just a high percentage of marriages by habit and repute? Robert Slater