LIST 18 - MARRIAGES - ST JOHNS PARRAMATTA

 
 
There were 557 marriages performed at St Johns during this decade. 
On average about one marriage every week.
 
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
 bride 
 family name
 Christian name
 year and ship of arrival
 civil status at time of marriage
 age at marriage
 comments
 reference number
 
The marriages are listed in chronological order.
 
It should be pointed out that in the original register the only 
information recorded was; date, family name and Christian name of both 
bride and groom. Information in the register but not included 
here includes; the officiating minister, names of the witnesses to 
the marriage and who gave consent to the marriage (the father to 
colonial born brides and the governor to convicts). Interested 
readers are urged to consult the originals.
 
As explained above the age at marriage is a derived figure, until in 
April 1814, to great acclaim from genealogists everywhere, the Rev 
Marsden began to record the age, civil status and ship of arrival 
of marriage participants.
 
Regrettably in 1817 the microfilm became very faint and in many cases 
it was impossible to read the details about each marriage 
participant.
 
The Rev Henry Fulton performed one marriage on the 1st November 1812 
and the Rev Benjamin Vale performed twenty marriages from the 14th 
November 1814 till the 1st April 1815. The Rev John Youl performed 
three marriages on the 23th September, 11th December and 16th 
December 1816. The Rev Samuel Marsden left for one of his regular 
trips to his New Zealand mission in July 1819. The Rev Richard Hill 
then performed two marriages on the 2nd August until the Rev John 
Cross took over until Marsden's return in January 1820. With the 
arrival of the Rev George Augustus Middleton in February 1820, 
he also started performing quite a lot of the marriages at St Johns.
 
In November 1819 the printed marriage register was obviously full and 
thereafter the clerks reverted to a hand written register which 
had not been in use since the 1790's.
 
The Comments column occasionally records the place of residence of 
the father, even less frequenty of the mother. This column has also 
been used to record when the officiating minister was someone 
other than Rev Samuel Marsden.
 
Obviously John Bootle and Catherine Soars doubted the legality of 
their first marriage in 1808 during the Rum Rebellion and were 
remarried by an ordained priest in 1812. The Bennett/Downs 
marriage of the 26th December 1820 (the last for the year) was 
recorded twice in the register.
 
The reference number would direct the reader to the entry in the 
original parish register. In this decade the numbers run from 470 to 
1026. 
 
To locate an entry on this list; firstly an alphabetical search on 
the name would be made on Lists 15 or 16 using code "SJP" 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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