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Interesting Phenomenon - Duplicate Marriages

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  • 27-06-2015 11:21pm
    #1
    Thomas from Presence
    Registered Users Posts: 1,151 ✭✭✭


    A couple of months ago I was on with an interesting problem - John Brunkard married an Anne Dalton in two Dublin parishes within five years of each other.

    Given the relative scarcity of John Brunkards, the odds of coincidence were quite long.

    Other than the explanations we examined at the time (remarrying a cousin etc.) there seems to be another phenomenon with church records that I thought I'd flag.

    It appears that marriages that occurred outside the local parish of the couple could be registered there in addition to the church they originally wed in.

    Here's an example - attached is a record transcription from Rolestown, Dublin, there's a note down the bottom indicating that the marriage actually took place in Westland Row.

    A quick nip around to IrishGenealogy.ie and sure enough Thomas Mangan marries Mary Rooney on the same date.

    It's anyone's guess why two rural Dubs nipped into town for their wedding but the takeaway here is that the marriage was recorded in their local parish regardless.

    This is the type of extra information that I hope to find in the church records scans coming out next month. These type of annotations are rarely transcribed on RootsIreland.com and they can explain a lot.


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    #2
    jos28
    Registered Users Posts: 7,189 ✭✭✭jos28


    I also had 2 marriages for the same couple. In my case it turned out that it was a mixed marriage and they married in the RC church and again in the COI


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    #3
    Hermy
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,307 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Yes, I too have one or two instances of couples marrying in two different churches because of a mixed marriage.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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    #4
    shanew
    Registered Users Posts: 2,777 ✭✭✭shanew


    In Thom's for 1884 and 1885 the priest, John O Reilly, is listed as being the P.P. in Rolestown .. so wonder why he married them in St. Andrews ?


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    #5
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,060 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    In the Catholic church there's a system by which, if you want to be married, you have to produce a "letter of freedom" from the church in which you were baptised, saying that (so far as they know) you are not already married. Then, after you have celebrated your marriage, the parish where you were married is supposed to write back to the parish of your baptism saying, in effect "he's married now", and they note that in their own records. If you then want a second letter of freedom, to marry someone else, your parish of baptism will refuse to issue it, because according to their records you are already married. You'll have to satisfy them that, e.g., you first spouse is dead in order to get a new letter of freedom. This was supposed to prevent bigamy, or at least make it more difficult, and of course the system originated before the state was keeping marriage records.

    This system has been in place (or is supposed to have been in place) since the early seventeenth century, although of course in many places and at many times it simply didn't operate, and in other places it may have operated but the records have not survived.

    But, because if this system, if it's working your parish of baptism is supposed to be notified of, and to keep a record of, your marriage even though they didn't celebrate it. And some priests, in some places, did this simply by entering a record of your marriage in their register of marriages when they were notified of it. (Others kept separate records of marriages celebrated in the parish, and of marriages notified by other parishes.) So it's not that unusual to find two separate Catholic parish records of the same marriage. In theory you could find three - one in the husband's parish of baptism, one in the wife's, and one in the parish of celebration, if neither the husband nor the wife was baptised there.

    Something similar could be happening with mixed marriages. It could be that the couple are re-celebrating their marriage, or it coudl be that the Catholic spouse has got a dispensation to be married in a non-Catholic church but (as with the "letter of freedom" system, and for the same reason) the Catholic spouse's home parish registers the marriage.


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    #6
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,060 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    .


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    #7
    montgo
    Registered Users Posts: 565 ✭✭✭montgo


    All of the parish registers that I have seen have annotations of the marriage beside the baptism record ie
    "said Margaret, etc married A. N. Other on such a date in St. Joseph's Limerick"
    I don't think that I have seen of these marriage annotations before the 1860s.

    I was told that one of the reasons that country people chose to marry in the town/city was the availability of hotels/restaurants that could provide the wedding breakfast.


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    #8
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,060 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    montgo wrote: »
    All of the parish registers that I have seen have annotations of the marriage beside the baptism record ie
    "said Margaret, etc married A. N. Other on such a date in St. Joseph's Limerick"
    I don't think that I have seen of these marriage annotations before the 1860s.
    One possible explanation for that, though, is that this way of recording the marriages concerned may only have been come widespread from the 1860s onwards. Prior to that, it may have been more common to note them by making an entry in the parish register of marriages. The practice of recording marriages in the spouses' parishes of baptism goes back to the Council of Trent (early seventeenth century) so if they weren't doing it by making annotations on the register of baptisms they ought to have been doing it in some way.


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    #9
    shanew
    Registered Users Posts: 2,777 ✭✭✭shanew


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    One possible explanation for that, though, is that this way of recording the marriages concerned may only have been come widespread from the 1860s onwards. Prior to that, it may have been more common to note them by making an entry in the parish register of marriages. The practice of recording marriages in the spouses' parishes of baptism goes back to the Council of Trent (early seventeenth century) so if they weren't doing it by making annotations on the register of baptisms they ought to have been doing it in some way.

    I'd seen the notes of later marriage in the margins of baptisms, I think 1870s where the ones I'd seen, but had never come across a one of these copy marriages before. Must keep an eye out for them when the film go on line...


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