In the Dutch Reformed Church the bans were read for 3 weeks Sent from my BlackBerry® -----Original Message----- From: Arlene via <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Sender: south-africa-bounces@rootsweb.com Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 07:14:12 To: <shayes@dunelm.org.uk>; 'Steve Hayes'<hayesstw@telkomsa.net>; <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Reply-To: Arlene <arlene@012.net.il>, south-africa@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Cape Colony Marriage Records Yes, Banns was an announcement of intention to get married. The purpose was to give anyone who was opposed to the marriage an opportunity to do so, e. g. make an application to court to prevent the marriage (thus spoiling many a movie plot!). If I remember correctly, one had to go to the Magistrate's office to get the form and it had to be displayed for at least 3 weeks prior to the marriage. If it had not been done timeously, the parties had to approach the court for permission to marry. Louis Zetler -----Original Message----- From: south-africa-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:south-africa-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Steve Hayes via Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 6:44 AM To: south-africa@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Cape Colony Marriage Records On 17 Mar 2015 at 23:04, Arlene via wrote: > The images online only commence in 1906. I'm not sure what the legal > requirements were at that time. I suspect that a law was passed that > only those marriages which were conducted in a Magistrate's Court > would be recognized from 1906. Obviously marriages were conducted by > religious ministers before 1906, but maybe they became too relax, e. > g. by allowing parties who were not officially divorced to remarry. I > remember that at some time a law was passed which gave religious > ministers the right to conduct marriages once they had been certified > to do so. The result of this was that there were some "putative" > marriages, i. e. marriages which were conducted by religious ministers > who had not been authorized to do so. If anyone who can fill me in with some of this legal history - I would really appreciate it. What I am looking for is announcement of the intention to marry, perhaps something like banns, in the period 1820-1850. I remember looking at them in the Cape Archives about 30-40 years ago, where they had them in a card index. It was in the old archives building, not the present one, I think in Queen Victoria Street, and I think the archival group was CO. The problem is that many of the old death notices do not give the name of the spouse, but only say whether the person was married or not, so I'm looking for the names of the spouses of a Thomas and William Morris, probably in the 1820s. -- Steve Hayes E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm Phone: 083-342-3563 or 012-333-6727 Fax: 086-548-2525 ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message