The civil registration of marriages in Scotland began in January 1855. As with birth and death records, two copies of marriage registers were created by local registrars. One was retained in the local registration district, while the other was transferred to the General Register Office in Edinburgh, now part of the National Records of Scotland. Boys as young as 14 and girls as young as 12 could wed until 1929, when the age for both increased to 16, still the case today. From 1567 being too closely related could prohibit a marriage: a person could not wed an ancestor, descendant or sibling, aunts/uncles or nephews/nieces, an adoptive parent or child, a wife’s sister (until 1907) or a brother’s widow (until 1921), although marriage between first cousins was permitted.
From 1855, the advance proclamation of banns by the Church of Scotland was required prior to a regular wedding taking place. From 1856, a minimum Scottish residency requirement of three weeks was also introduced, which continued until 1977, while the 1878 Marriage Notice (Scotland) Act established an alternative to the calling of the banns prior to a wedding, through the use of a marriage notice posted outside the registrar’s office. The same Act also permitted other religious denominations to call the banns in their own church buildings, rather than the local Church of Scotland parish church.
The use of banns as a form of pre-publication ceased from January 1978, with marriage notices remaining the only form of pre-publication in use today. From 1940 a sheriff’s licence was briefly introduced as an alternative to both banns and marriage notices, which was also discontinued from 1978.
If there were no objections following pre-publication, a marriage schedule was issued to the couple, to be returned filled in to the registrar within three days of the ceremony occurring (on penalty of a fine). The registrar copied the information from this schedule into the register, including transcriptions of the parties’ signatures; the signatures shown on records were thus written by the registrar, rather than by the couple or their witnesses.
Statutory marriage records are digitised and indexed, and available online via the NRS’s pay-per-view website ScotlandsPeople. When accessing the site from home, images of historic events can only be viewed if they’re over 75 years old; each document costs six credits to view (currently £1.50). More recent events can be viewed at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh, and at local registrars’ centres across the country (see here to find out more).
Records of regular marriages before July 1940 will note when and where the marriage was performed, and by which denomination. The couple’s details will include names, ages, status (bachelor, spinster, widowed, divorced), occupations and residences. In addition, records will note the names of the couple’s fathers, their occupations, and if they’re deceased, as well as information on their mothers, including maiden surnames (abbreviated as “m.s”), if deceased, and previous married surnames. The celebrant’s name and qualification will be noted, as well as the witnesses’ names, and the date and place of registration. For 1855 only, each partner’s birthplace is recorded, the number of previous marriages for each, and the number of children produced from these.
From July 1940, registrars could carry out marriage ceremonies for the first time, with their names inserted instead of a minister.
It was possible to marry irregularly in Scotland prior to July 1940, which involved the simple exchange of consent between partners in the presence of two witnesses, and with no celebrant involved. An irregular marriage could not immediately be registered, however, until a warrant was obtained from the local county sheriff-substitute granting them permission to do so. This was done after the couple was examined and everything found to be in order, for example that they were of legal age, and had satisfied the residency criteria. Such a warrant had to be secured within three months of the wedding, at which point the couple would then visit the registrar to have their marriage documented.
The details of irregular marriage records will differ slightly to regular ceremonies. The first column usually notes that the event happened “by declaration”, with the names of the two witnesses stated, and details of the warrant issued rather than those of a celebrant.