TMG-L Archives
Archiver > TMG > 2001-05 > 0988718288
From:
Subject: Re: [TMG] Early marriage records and established religion
Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 07:58:08 EDT
Christopher- I did over generalize. My main point really had more to do with
the folks who went over the mountains into Illinois, Ohio, Indiana etc. When
I took my young Catholic bride home to my small town in southern Illinois
after World War 2, she was amazed to find O"Haras, and other obvious Irish
names as Baptists etc. From Long Island she had never known an Irishman who
wasn't a Catholic. When some of the people who belonged to established
religions went west they often left church and priest or minister behind.
Consequently religions splintered into all sorts of smaller groups often led
by a lay person. We must have had 20 "churches" in my home town, most of them
just a small group of people meeting in a house every Sunday. There were
larger churches in town like the Baptists, Methodists etc also. Early in the
midwest a minister would only pass through a settlement every once in a while
and I understand the marriage ceremony consisting of the couple jumping over
a broom, then living together and awaiting the arrival of the minister who
then sometimes conducted a joint ceremony for all the couples who had jumped
the broom. My main point at the beginning was that marriage records for many
of my ancestors, at least, were non existent or lost, but that these couples
were married as far as anyone knows. It is the old story of the duck. If it
walks like a duck, talks like a duck etc. One can say the same about early
marriages. If the couple lived as married in the community, acted like
married folks in the community, they probably were married in some fashion or
the other even though we, today, can find no record of such an event.-Dale
This thread: