Reading of the Banns and recording that they were indeed proclaimed appears to be one of the consistencies of all of these St. Cuthbert's entries. Many of the couples were wed in other churches, and the good Minister took great care to record the marriage date with the location of the church and the Reverend's name who performed the ceremony. I averaged the Marriage entries per page at 6 and in looking over 8 pages, found an average of 2 per page that did not have any marriage recorded. I noted that marriages in the IGI used the date at the top of each page as the Marriage date IF there was no other found. The transcribers had to enter a date of marriage, there was no place for them to record the date of Banns. Fully realize this is the cause of finding conflicting Marriage dates in the IGI....both the Banns date and the Marriage date were entered as Marriages. Transcribers had no other choice given to them. The "grey" areas you noted were perpetuated at a greater level of "greyness" by this decision to record only 1 date for a "Marriage" in constructing the IGI...even though 2 separate dates were clearly described in many instances. Do you think this may be because the couple did not report their actual marriage back to a recording church ? I thought since the Banns were ordered to be proclaimed [and the couple certainly should have rememberd it, one or both of them was there personally], the process should have been completed by reporting the marriage back to any church where the Banns were proclaimed [St. Cuthbert's in this case]. Or am I to understand that there was no need to report a completed Marriage ceremony back to any church that recorded the Banns ? Some couples obviously did get this reported, other couples evidently did not....or it was possibly forgotten by the clerk or Minister as I surmised earlier. Many thanks John for your explanation of Banns procedures. I do hope the forgetfullness of recording the final marriage was not on the part of this clerk or Minister. He's recorded so much in the OPR books and appears to have been eager to properly record all Banns and Marriages reported to him. MegG in OK ===========================

Good evening Meg, You make some excellent points in your note !! " Or am I to understand that there was no need to report a completed Marriage ceremony back to any church that recorded the Banns ? " That is correct ! Once the Banns were read and no objections were forthcoming that Church/Minister's job was "finished " and as far as they were concerned there was no "legal" requirement for the bride and groom to furnish the details back to them . I was a close friend of the late Kay Cory who wrote what I still think is the most definitive book on researching Scottish family history ( Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry by Kathleen B. Cory) . She was the one who provided me with the basic tools for researching FH and always maintained the major problem with OPR records was there was no standard procedure for maintaining/recording these Registers . It is a situation we have to live with and I personally depend on friends/colleagues from different parts of the country to help with local variations in the recording of events. Also don't forget , if it is possible , to use the "Kirk Session Minutes" - they can be an "Aladdin's Cave " !! Good luck with your research !! Regards John John D. Stevenson Edinburgh