MARRIAGES - ST JAMES PITT TOWN

 
 
During this decaded there were thirty-five marriages performed at St James, up 
fourteen on the previous decade, on average  between just three and four per 
year.
 
No  records were found for the year 1837. In that year  St  James Pitt  Town  
was  one  of  three  churches  along  with  St  Johns Wilberforce  & St Thomas 
Sackville Reach reporting no  marriages: all churches which were in the charge 
of the Rev Henry Stiles, which  tends to indicate that perhaps all the records 
from  these churches  have  been misplaced or lost rather than  no  marriages 
actually  being  performed in that year (which  seems  unlikely). 
 
The information recorded for each marriage is as follows:
               date
               groom 
                    family name
                    Christian name
                    year and ship of arrival
                    civil status at time of marriage
                    age at marriage
                    parish
               bride 
                    family name
                    Christian name
                    year and ship of arrival
                    civil status at time of marriage
                    age at marriage
                    parish
               consent given by
               officiating minister
               reference number
 
The marriages are listed in chronological order.
 
Post 1826 all parishes were required to record all marriages on a standardized   
printed  form,  which  contained   the   following information:  register  entry 
number, family name  and  Christian name  of both bride and groom, residant parish 
of the  bride  and groom, date of marriage, who gave consent to the marriage 
and the officiating  minister. Information recorded on the  register  but not  
included  here includes the names of the  witnesses  to  the marriage  (Interested 
readers are urged to consult  the  original register for this information).
 
It should be pointed out that 'year and ship of arrival',  'civil status at time 
of marriage' and 'age at marriage' for both  bride and groom are all "value added" 
additions researched by this  work to complement the church register. As 
explained above the age  at marriage is a derived figure.
 
With regard to the grooms 30 (86%) have been identified and  the brides  32  (91%)  
have  been identified.  The  consent  of  the Governor was required in 14 cases 
(40%).
 
The Reverend Matthew Devenish Meares continued as rector of  this parish  until  
end  of 1836 who was apparently a  very  busy  man sharing his time between St 
James Pitt Town, St Johns Wilberforce and St Thomas Sackville Reach. The Rev Henry Stiles 
was chaplain for the year 1837 (but no marriages were conducted that year). The Reverend John Espy Keane replaced him in 1838 for the rest of the decade.
 
The  remarkable thing about the marriages at this  church  during this  decade 
was that fourteen of the brides were  colonial  born and  one other arrived free 
in the colony as a child and nine  of the grooms were colonial born.
 
The reference number would direct the reader to the entry in  the original parish 
register. In this decade the numbers continued on from the previous decade at 
0022 and  run  to 0056.
 
To  locate an entry on this list; firstly an alphabetical  search on the name 
would be made on Lists 3 or 4 using code "SJPT"  from which the date of marriage 
would be retrieved, secondly using the appropriate  date,  the marriage would 
then be  located  on  this list.


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