Marriage outside the church in 19th century

[quoddy]

I am researching the history of my family. My Great Grandfather was an Irish Catholic who married a Baptist girl a few years after arriving from Ireland. He practiced his faith and the first few children were baptised in the local Catholic Parish church. About 10 years after the marriage, his wife was baptized into the Catholic Church.

Would a Catholic man marry in a civil ceremony or in her local church?

It is interesting to note that the baptisms of their children prior to the wife’s baptism are listed as “the marriage of” and after her baptism they are listed as “the lawful marriage of”.

Would they have a Catholic marriage ceremony now that she has been baptised into the Catholic Church?

If I were interested in collecting more information about their family, would there be church records beyond the baptism, marriage and burial?

Would a rural church need to obtain a Bona Fides for the man professing to be Catholic?

thanks

quoddy

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

I am researching the history of my family. My Great Grandfather was an Irish Catholic who married a Baptist girl a few years after arriving from Ireland. He practiced his faith and the first few children were baptised in the local Catholic Parish church. About 10 years after the marriage, his wife was baptized into the Catholic Church.

Would a Catholic man marry in a civil ceremony or in her local church?

It is interesting to note that the baptisms of their children prior to the wife’s baptism are listed as “the marriage of” and after her baptism they are listed as “the lawful marriage of”.

Would they have a Catholic marriage ceremony now that she has been baptised into the Catholic Church?

If I were interested in collecting more information about their family, would there be church records beyond the baptism, marriage and burial?

Would a rural church need to obtain a Bona Fides for the man professing to be Catholic?

thanks

quoddy

More than likely, he married his wife in the Catholic Church. There is no need for her to be Catholic in order to marry “in the Church.” There would not have been a nuptual ceremony, just the exchanging of the vows. My grandfather was not a Catholic when he married my Catholic grandmother. He was required to promise to rear the children as Catholics, as he faithfully did, even taking them to Mass when their mother was in the hospital for months, ill.

You will probably have the best luck looking for records at the church where the children were baptised. However, documents that old might be stored at the Chancery office. I was able to find ancestors’ baptismal records in Wisconsin going back to the 1870s with no problem. Most parishes will charge a nominal fee for the service, as they should.

You should be able to find records for Confirmation and First Holy Communion, as well.

My Quaker ancestors had to provide a letter of membership from their elders when they married someone from another meeting house. I haven’t heard of any of my Catholic ancestors having to provide any bona fides, especially since they were all immigrants. This is a very interesting question. I am into geneology as a big hobby, and would like to find out the answer to this one. I’ll ask my pastor, he might know what was the norm back then.

How wonderful that your Great Grandmother was received into the Catholic Church!

 

[quoddy]

Thanks for responding Peggy

I hadn’t anticipated your answer that the original marriage could have been in the Catholic church. I’ll look there also.

How wonderful that your Great Grandmother was received into the Catholic Church!

Unfortunately things went poorly later on.

A daughter in her 20’s died without her confession being heard. Because she died “in a state of sin” she was not allowed to be buried in the church cemetery. All but my great grandfather left the church at this point. My GGF is buried alone in the Catholic cemetery and his wife and children are buried a few miles away in the Protestant cemetery.

quoddy

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

Thanks for responding Peggy

I hadn’t anticipated your answer that the original marriage could have been in the Catholic church. I’ll look there also.

How wonderful that your Great Grandmother was received into the Catholic Church!

That is so terribly sad, and in my opinion, terribly wrong about your grand-aunt’s death. Must have been a very strict parish, though. I haven’t heard of such a thing in this country. Maybe there is more to the part about “in a state of sin,” that you are not privvie to, or that the rest of us need not know. Thankfully, God is our Judge.

Things like these are what drove some people from the Church. My own grandfather, back in the Old Country, was condemned to Hell by the local priest for missing a Mass. Being a teenager at the time, he kept going to Church with his family. But, when he immigrated, he left the Church. He purposely came to the USA instead of Argentina (where his brothers all went), because he said he wanted to live in a country where the Church wasn’t in charge of everything. But, he made sure his wife and family went to church on Sundays. This isn’t the same grandfather I mentioned before; that grandfather was born in Kansas. However, my grandfather became terribly ill when I was a toddler, and decided that prehaps he should get his act together with God and the Church. As a result, my cousins and I remember a very good Catholic grandfather, who attended Mass until the day he died, many decades later.

Please keep in touch with me. Geneology is a fascinating subject, one in which I received a college education. I would be delighted to help you out, however I can.

 

[quoddy]

And of course you are right. Families would go to the ends of the earth to hide something shameful. So little exists on paper to decide this one way or the other.

My father remembers my grandmother telling the story of her sister’s death. The priest was called to the hospital but she was not conscious. She died hours later. I do not know how she died (accident, disease, etc) but the families exodus from the church at that point is well documented. Several sibling left the church in a show of unity and later returned to the Catholic faith as adults.

I don’t know how strict the local parish was during that period but everything that I have seen suggests that it was not that strict. One would always like to tie up the loose ends when researching a family tree but must sometimes accept that some mysteries will never be answered.

I appreciate the time you took to explain the way things worked. Good luck in your family search and I will certainly return if I have more questions.

quoddy

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

And of course you are right. Families would go to the ends of the earth to hide something shameful. So little exists on paper to decide this one way or the other.

My father remembers my grandmother telling the story of her sister’s death. The priest was called to the hospital but she was not conscious. She died hours later. I do not know how she died (accident, disease, etc) but the families exodus from the church at that point is well documented. Several sibling left the church in a show of unity and later returned to the Catholic faith as adults.

I don’t know how strict the local parish was during that period but everything that I have seen suggests that it was not that strict. One would always like to tie up the loose ends when researching a family tree but must sometimes accept that some mysteries will never be answered.

I appreciate the time you took to explain the way things worked. Good luck in your family search and I will certainly return if I have more questions.

quoddy

Thank you for wishing me luck. I’ve been pretty lucky so far, but like one of my teachers said, sometimes you can get your family out of the swamp, but you can’t figure out how they got there.

I’m lucky, also, that my family stayed put in one house in Spain for over 500 years (they still own the house), and the church records are still intact. Made it a little easier for that side of the family. However, the other side has many question marks. That is the fun of the whole thing, for me–it is like a mystery novel–only, I’m related to the “missing links!”

Feel free to private message me sometime, if you like. You never know–we might be related on the Irish side!

 

[1ke]

Would a Catholic man marry in a civil ceremony or in her local church?

The canon law in place at that time would have dictated where and how a Catholic could marry. Catholic could not marry in a civil ceremony. I am not positive, but I do not believe the canons of that day allowed for a Catholic to be dispensed from Catholic form.

It is interesting to note that the baptisms of their children prior to the wife’s baptism are listed as “the marriage of” and after her baptism they are listed as “the lawful marriage of”.

Then your grandfather likely married outside the Church and was in an invalid marriage.

Would they have a Catholic marriage ceremony now that she has been baptised into the Catholic Church?

This is called a convalidation.

If I were interested in collecting more information about their family, would there be church records beyond the baptism, marriage and burial?

There should be sacramental records for all sacraments conferred in that parish or diocese.

Would a rural church need to obtain a Bona Fides for the man professing to be Catholic?

Sacramental records, yes.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I recall reading that in the early days, when Catholic Churches were few and far between, Catholics were allowed be married civilly if a priest was not available within reasonable time and distance. I don’t know any of the details. I think this permission was revoked in the early 20th century.

It was long ago that I read this, and I didn’t look into it very deeply. So don’t bet any real money on it.

I don’t think it would ever have been permitted to marry in a non-Catholic church except with special permission from the Bishop - and that exception may be a recent development.

 

[AJV]

I am researching the history of my family. My Great Grandfather was an Irish Catholic who married a Baptist girl a few years after arriving from Ireland. He practiced his faith and the first few children were baptised in the local Catholic Parish church. About 10 years after the marriage, his wife was baptized into the Catholic Church.

Would a Catholic man marry in a civil ceremony or in her local church?

It is interesting to note that the baptisms of their children prior to the wife’s baptism are listed as “the marriage of” and after her baptism they are listed as “the lawful marriage of”.

Would they have a Catholic marriage ceremony now that she has been baptized into the Catholic Church?

If I were interested in collecting more information about their family, would there be church records beyond the baptism, marriage and burial?

Would a rural church need to obtain a Bona Fides for the man professing to be Catholic?

thanks

quoddy

It is difficult to say exactly without knowing where your grandfather was.

Until the law of St. Pius X, the canons of marriage were extremely complicated, and the validity of the marriage depended on where a person was, and whether he or she was considered to be domiciled there, etc., etc.

To give it in brief: the Council of Trent enacted that two baptized people (and this included Protestants) should marry in front of a priest. This effectively clamped down on mixed marriages because Protestants would not go to the priest, and if they did the priest would usually refuse to officiate or at least heavily discourage it. Prior to this ruling, it was not always necessary to be married in front of a priest to have a valid marriage.So for example a civil marriage would’ve been valid.

The thing was that for the law to take effect it had to be promulgated and not every diocese did this. In places like the United States it differed widely from place to place.

Another complicating factor was that Pope Benedict XIV had given what was called the “Benedictine Privilege”. Because Protestantism was so widespread at that point, in order to prevent all these invalid marriages, he exempted Protestants when they married among themselves or with Catholics.

So really in the USA you had three possible combination (1) no decree of Trent (2) decree of Trent only (3) decree of Trent + privilege.

If the marriage was invalid, they would have had to remarry - but more information would be needed and someone more qualified than myself.

Also to note, in a mixed marriage, they would never be married inside a church at that time. The Church frowned heavily on mixed marriages and they were not solemnized in any fashion