Married or not

Parish Records and other sources

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julie d
Posts: 39
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:25 am
Location: Middlesbrough N/E England

Married or not

Post by julie d » Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:15 am

Hi I posted a long time ago about not being able to find a marriage between James Donaldson and Janet Marshall. I have recently been looking on SP at the birth of their son Robert Donaldson 1806, it says James and spouse Janet Marshall. Would it say spouse if they were not married.
Julie
searching Scotland for Donaldson, Marshall

Currie
Posts: 3924
Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:20 am
Location: Australia

Re: Married or not

Post by Currie » Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:06 am

Hello Julie,

One of your previous posts with more detail of the family.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3717&hilit=janet+marshall

According to the FamilySearch Wiki page for Bathgate parish there are records of only eight marriages between 1785 and 1811. That’s an average of about one marriage every three years.
https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Ba ... _Genealogy

The 1791 Statistical Account of the parish of Bathgate gives us some interesting figures.
https://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/ ... account_1/

The total population was 2309, comprising 984 males and 1325 females.
About 1989 were Established Church, about 320 were Seceders, and 3 Episcopal.
There were a total of 449 married couples living in the parish.
There were about 21 marriages every year.

At 21 marriages a year that would be at least 500 marriages over the 26 years of the 1785 to 1811 period for which there are surviving records only for 8. That’s probably why you can’t find any record of yours.

Would they have dared not to have been married in a society in which everyone was packaged so neatly into religious groups. Not likely.

All the best,
Alan

julie d
Posts: 39
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:25 am
Location: Middlesbrough N/E England

Re: Married or not

Post by julie d » Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:41 pm

Thanks Alan, that's a lot of information from you. I will check the links out.
Julie
searching Scotland for Donaldson, Marshall