Irregular Marriages & Non-Conformist Records According to information on the GRO Scotland website - it wasn't until 1834, when a "Marriage (Scotland) Act" was passed - that ministers & priests "not of the established church" were permitted to conduct legal marriage ceremonies. This would indicate to me that prior to 1834 marriage ceremonies were not conducted in non-conformist churches. Couples who were of non-conformist persuasions who wished to have a "regular" marriage ceremony would have had to be married (not necessarily in church - marriages were often held in the home of the bride) by a minister of the established Church of Scotland. So to answer your question Ailsa, it would seem that there are no non-conformist church marriage records prior to 1834. This digest arrangement scares me silly - I hope I've done this reply correctly! Margery Edmonds ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 18:42:56 +1000 From: "ailsa158" <ailsa158@optusnet.com.au> Subject: Re: [WIG LIST] Irregular Marriages SCT-WIGTOWNSHIRE Digest, Vol 8, Issue 121 To: <sct-wigtownshire@rootsweb.com> Message-ID: <000301cea16f$1c09d010$541d7030$@optusnet.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to explain Irregular marriages. It has always confused me. >From reading the discussion, it would appear that non-conformists who married in their own churches pre 1834 were considered to be in Irregular marriages. Is that correct? If so, where would these marriage records be held? Regards, Ailsa ------------------------------ To contact the SCT-WIGTOWNSHIRE list administrator, send an email to SCT-WIGTOWNSHIRE-admin@rootsweb.com. To post a message to the SCT-WIGTOWNSHIRE mailing list, send an email to SCT-WIGTOWNSHIRE@rootsweb.com. __________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCT-WIGTOWNSHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word "unsubscribe" without the quotes in the subject and the body of the email with no additional text. End of SCT-WIGTOWNSHIRE Digest, Vol 8, Issue 122 ************************************************