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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: M_ONeill on Sunday 11 August 19 17:11 BST (UK)
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Hey all,
I’ve just run across a record in the Irish Catholic Parish Registers showing my 2x great grandparents getting married on the 30th of July 1866. This is all well and good, but I have a previously found record showing the couple getting married at the registry office some five days prior!
Why would a couple get married twice in such a short space of time? I had considered that maybe the catholic registry entry was simply a recording of the first marriage, but the given witnesses are different for both ceremonies.
Anyone have any thoughts?
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My thought are...
Why not post a Link to great grandparents getting married on the 30th of July 1866?
Why not post a Link to great grandparents getting married at the registry office some five days prior?
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Belgian friends of mine had to "go up before the mayor" (i.e. Civil Marriage) before getting married in church.
Perhaps something similar was happening here?
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This is the registry office marriage (https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1866/11542/8244865.pdf). Note the transcription on the website says ‘25th September’ 1886. That part of the record is fairly faded, but I’m pretty sure I can make out ‘July’ next to the year.
This is the catholic parish registry (https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/61039/05582_02_0014?pid=9648866&backurl=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D61039%26h%3D9648866%26ssrc%3Dpt%26tid%3D162696516%26pid%3D322120145599%26usePUB%3Dtrue&ssrc=pt&treeid=162696516&personid=322120145599&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.148790065.729070523.1565540869-1066921932.1565540869) record. Both records are the right parish/area, the right names and the right time.
K Garrad, a good thought, but I don’t think that was the case in Northern Ireland. All marriages had to be registered to the civil authority, but most of the marriages registered were still done by the churches/chapels of the varying denominations.
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Don't have Anc sub to look via Link
https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0204 are the Church registers
Which couple is being referred to as getting Married ?
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As they are in the 4th quarter Book the Registrar would have Registered the Reg Office marriage on day of event.
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It’s definitely my 2x great grandparents James Bell and Eliza Lamont. Their names are next to the listing number in the margins and also have a tick by them.
The two witnesses in the catholic register are Adam Ward and Mary Jane Kelly.
Edit: Ah, good find... so their registry office marriage happened some time after the Catholic marriage...
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See
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=707755.0
KG
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Ahhhh...was thinking the same thing as Aghadowey thought on other thread!!
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So if I’m following correctly, you think that this might be to do with a possible mixed marriage or conversion? I’ve become more and more convinced of that myself, but I was a bit thrown off that track when I saw the catholic marriage record.
Would a mixed marriage couple have been likely to have had two ceremonies? I believe the Catholic Church at the time permitted mixed marriages, provided all children were baptised and raised Catholic, which I have confirmed for all of James and Eliza’s children.
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Did a registrar have to be present at a wedding in a Catholic church in Ireland for the ceremony to be legal?
That was the case in England. I've come across a few Catholic couples in England who had to go to the registry office for a civil ceremony because a registrar was unable to be at the church for the Catholic wedding ceremony.
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Albert Edward Acheson married Rosetta Maria Maria Marshall 22 August 1882, Dublin, Ireland, AND same couple married Sheffield, Yorkshire, England 4 July 1883. Possible reasons: a The Groom was in the Royal Navy and filed to get permission to marry from the Navy. b The Bride's father was a Solicitor (Lawyer in the American Language) and objected to them getting married without HIS permission.
c The Bride did not tell her parents she was already married and just went through the second marriage to keep the peace.
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Did a registrar have to be present at a wedding in a Catholic church in Ireland for the ceremony to be legal?
That was the case in England. I've come across a few Catholic couples in England who had to go to the registry office for a civil ceremony because a registrar was unable to be at the church for the Catholic wedding ceremony.
I believe this was the case, at least once the laws were reformed. I read that this was the original reason for the registry office weddings being brought in, but I'll need to look up the source again, can't remember where I read it.
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I'm still confused as to James' religion. I had suspected that he was originally part of one of the Presbyterian Bell families that lived in the area, but given that he had a catholic wedding I'm not sure about it. He could also have been a convert, of course.
If James was born a Presbyterian, then I would expect to find him a baptismal record for him, as the earliest Coagh Presbyterian baptismal records go back to 1838 (though neither the records nor an index are available online as far as I can see), and I believe he was born around 1840. If he was born a Catholic, then I'm out of luck, as the registration of Catholic births only begins in the 1860s.
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I'm still confused as to James' religion. I had suspected that he was originally part of one of the Presbyterian Bell families that lived in the area, but given that he had a catholic wedding I'm not sure about it. He could also have been a convert, of course.
Was his bride Catholic? If so, maybe the Catholic wedding was to satisfy her and her family.
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She is listed as Roman Catholic in the 1901 census (James isn't in the census, having died in 1883).
That being said, there are also non-catholic Lamonts in the area, so I can't discount her being the convert either.
I still think it's most likely that James was the non-catholic. Looking at where Eliza is living as of the 1901 census, she is living in Drumads, Tyrone on land rented by Arthur Hamilton Bell, a Presbyterian. He is living a few houses away with his brother, a David Miller Bell, and a deaf and dumb sister, Annie Johnston (she's unmarried, so I've yet to figure out the different surname). They have a catholic farm servant James Bell, 14 - just a bit too old to be one of James and Eliza's children.
Eliza's son Hugh, my great-grandfather, is living in nearby Aughaveagh on land rented by the 'Hamiltons of Drumads'. As Arthur's middle name suggests, the Hamiltons were related to this other Bell family through marriage (Arthur and David's father was Hamilton Bell, son of a David Bell Esq and an Eliza Catherine Hamilton).
By 1911, Hugh and family have moved to Drumconvis, neighbouring Drumads. They are living on land rented by an Agnes Witherow Bell - the widow of David Miller Bell. It's all circumstantial, of course, but I suspect there may be a family link here, however distant.
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https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0204 are the Church registers
This is so faded I can't see the marriage. According to the months listed for 1866 there were no marriages in July. I can see June at top of the page and I can make out A for Aug. but it's unclear whether all weddings in between are for June or if some are for July. Facing page starts November.
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I think that link may be incorrect. These (https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000632528#page/14/mode/1up) are the parish registers for Coagh. That book is luckily far less faded, and the marriage is clearly on the 30th July.
Interestingly, I note that there is no sum of money entered against the marriage as there are for some of the other records.
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Well, this mystery just threw another turn...
I’ve been chatting with the admin of a local history group and they dropped a bit of knowledge I didn’t know previously; namely that Coagh parish was only created in 1865. Prior to that it had been the parish of Donaghenry.
They looked in the registers for Donaghenry and found a catholic baptismal record for a John Bell, son of James Bell and Eliza Lamb (which they believe is a variant of Lamont) in 1862. Now I’ve heard of couples getting married because a baby’s on the way, but I’ve never heard of a couple getting married four years after their first child! So I’m sceptical... but on the other hand there is circumstantial evidence in support of the idea.
Firstly, if this John is indeed my ancestor James and Eliza’s son it would tie together a few other threads in my research, namely the other catholic Bell families of the area. There is a John Bell who marries a Mary School (I believe an alternate spelling of Scullion) in the chapel of Mullinahoe in 1885. John’s father is listed as a James Bell and the couple go on to live in Mullawotragh. I had wondered about a connection to my tree, but hadn’t thought of John as a possible son of James and Eliza as he was too old!
John and Mary’s children share a number of names with James’ family, including one son named as Walter in the civil births in 1904 but listed as Albert everywhere else. As my 2x great grandfather’s father was called Walter, I’m wondering if Walter Albert was named for his great grandfather. There is one remaining catholic Bell family to account for, a James Bell son of James who marries a Mary Teaney in Drumullan in 1890, but it’s looking possible that my ancestor James Bell is indeed the root ancestor for all catholic Bell families in Coagh!
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Just found a birth record for a James Bell son of James Bell and Eliza Lammon in Lissan, Tyrone in 1864.
This James and the John mentioned in the last post end up being the heads of the remaining two catholic Bell families of Coagh around the turn of the century. These were two families that I had yet to tie into the tree. I am now fairly confident in saying that James Bell the elder and Eliza Lamont are the root ancestors of every catholic Bell family in this area. Every other Bell family I can find are Presbyterian, with a handful of Church of Ireland thrown in.
Given the above, along with the fact that James and Eliza were apparently in a committed relationship at least four years before their wedding(s), I'm wondering whether there was initially some impediment to their marriage. Family or church disapproval, perhaps? The two marriages were then perhaps a compromise to keep families of two differing religious affiliations happy?
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Hi
Sorry not done any research for a while but, i wondered if this link may just help you? All I know is I found many double marriages, Christenings even deaths and think this is why you have found two marriages.
www.answers.com/Q/How_did_Henry_VIII_change_the_church_in_England
I know there maybe other reason's as I don't honestly understand everything but, this just came to mind reading your post.
People could not be married, buried Christened Catholic under the new rules so, they use to do one C of E and then go to another town and do it Catholic because that was their belief.
Hope it helps you, if not for this one but, maybe for others