Genealogy Chat

I have come across a marriage from 1736 which was included in a 'Calendar of Irregular Marriages, Kirk Sessions, 1697- 1818'.

I am familiar with the usual meaning of an Irregular Marriage in Scotland (a marriage with no celebrant where vows are declared by the couple in the presence of 2 witnesses - not legal since 1/1/1939).

I presume in this case that the Kirk Sessions referred to the Church of Scotland, and it states who performed the marriage and also 2 witnesses. So what would an Irregular Marriage mean in the eyes of the CoS ?

This doesn't answer your specific question, but makes interesting reading.

http://jsh.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/11/03/jsh.sht041.full

Thanks for that, Andysmum. As you say makes interesting reading and I would recommend it to those doing Scottish genealogy.

It may also give some clues to my query. The article states that the Kirk Session Clerks were charged with compiling the statistics of vital events (which included irregular marriages) : Also that some marriages were irregular because they were conducted by unauthorised persons outwith the Church.

It may be in this case that the Kirk Session Clerk has recorded a 'marriage' where the 'celebrant' was such an unauthorised person. This certainly happened after the schism between the 'established' Church of Scotland and the Free Church in 1843
whereby only the CoS was authorised in their own eyes.

I think that the COS were a law unto themselves.

I have come across a number of irregular marriages recently.
2 involved alimony for desertion and in both case the courts deemed their marriages lawful.


This case is after statutory registration of 1855..

A man from my family tree was "discharged from his duties" because his workplace had discovered that his child was born some years prior to his "Marriage By Declaration"

The church minutes show that the man asked for a hearing to explain his situation in full.
He stated that he and his wife had an irregular marriage about 5yrs earlier, they had no proof of this and their child was born within a year.

He said that they both realised that there was no proof that the irregular marriage had ever taken place so they decided to register again, this time by declaration at the Sherriffs office in order to obain a marriage certificate.( 3yrs later)

His explanation was accepted, and the man was reinstated into his previous role .

This man was a long term Church Of Scotland Minister !
Personally, I don't believe him