Pennsylvania marriage records - Church vs civil
I have just discovered that Pennsylvania did not require marriage licenses prior to September 30 1885. My great-grand parents have a marriage record from the state of Pennsylvania dated 1888, but according to census records, they were married in 1885, and had two children prior to that 1888 marriage. Which marriage date should I use for them? I am leaning toward the 1885 date, adding a note and tagging both the census and the 1888 Pennsylvania marriage record, but I am open to other suggestions.
Answers
-
I do lineage research and I also have run into that extremely annoying fact about PA. I did find a church certificate that I used. You should look in church records; you may get lucky.
0 -
@colleenskaines1
FamilySearch has some good - but often unindexed - church records, for some locations. Some are full-text search enabled.
FindMyPast has Roman Catholic records for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.0 -
If you have a marriage record dated 1888 that is probably the accurate date. If a census record, that you are completely convinced is for them, says their marriage date was 1885, then one thought that comes to mind was that they may have had absolutely no intention of telling a nosey census enumerator that they got married after their first two children were born and so made up a marriage date that was before the birth of their first child.
My favorite example of people fiddling with dates is my great-grandfather's third wife. On her marriage record to her third husband (ggf was her second), the birthdate she provided made her about five years younger than him. She was really ten years older than him. On the next census she was about the same age as him. On the next census she was about five years older than him, and when she turned 100, she was back to using her real birth date and really was 100.
5 -
@colleenskaines1 - you should certainly look at church records for Pennsylvania - you probably need to check their coverage for the relevant areas.
However, I am inclined to go with @Gordon Collett - you have to think that if they really had married in 1885, why is there another marriage in 1888? Essentially that's always what you have to do - think yourself into your ancestors' shoes and work out why. Don't imagine that there will always be a clear answer - that's what Notes and Discussions are for - recording the possibilities
PS people did marry twice - my 3G GF married one of his wives twice but I have no idea why. Maybe his in laws complained about not being invited to the first do? I'll never know.
1 -
No, I do not think for a minute that their real marriage date was 1888 when colleenskaines1 indicated there were children born prior to that. What likely happened is when the county finally came to their senses and realized that a lack of legal documentation of marriage was leading to problems with inheritance, guardianship, etc because churches could not be counted on to keep marriage records, they opened the doors and advised everyone to "make it legal". Please look for a church record.
3 -
Yes, as @Gail Swihart Watson says, keep searching, re-searching, and searching again, but as @Adrian Bruce1 put so well "think yourself into your ancestors' shoes and work out why." And always keep in mind that while records may be black and white, real history rarely is.
And being fascinated by history and its possibilities, I did some brief searching and found this very interesting article: which states that despite the government's repeated efforts to get marriages registered, people didn't take this very seriously for a long time. Common-law marriage was legal in Pennsylvania until 2005.
So here is a third theory for you: Your couple saw no need for church or state, told each other they were married, and lived that way. Thereby having a common law marriage with no documentation until, as Gail suggested, something came up that required documentation.
(If you really have time to burn, you might find this article about marriages in Virginia fascinating: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=law-faculty-publications )
So you do have your work cut out for you to come up with your favorite theory, and that is all it will be, but then document all the evidence so that the next researcher to come to this couple can see what you decided, why, and be able to take the same evidence and come up with alternate explanations and conclusions. Other's can complete that process until everyone agrees on the most likely history for them. Or you may just have to accept never knowing!
Here is a list of options, now up to five, I can come up with:
- No marriage in 1885, did not live together as husband and wife but were just really good friends. There will be no documentation of a marriage.
- Common-law marriage in 1885, lived together as husband and wife, and they and the community considered them married. There will be no documentation of this either.
- Church marriage in 1885 with no documentation.
- Church marriage in 1885 with documentation you have not found yet.
- Civil registration of marriage in 1885 with lost, destroyed, or erroneous documentation and had to re-marry to created required documentation.
Anyone with other theories?
If you post a link to that 1888 marriage record for everyone to stare at, maybe there are some subtle clues as to the actual situation.
(Do birth records exist for the two children born before 1888? Do they give any clues?)
4 -
The county where many of my family lived in the 19th century suffered a burned courthouse TWICE within a decade. Marriages for many couples were lost, documents recreated, sometimes with new ceremonies, and then lost again.
There are many reasons why there is no document online for us to find today.
4
