LIST 10 - MARRIAGES - GROOMS NAME ORDER

 
 
There were 742 marriages recorded during this decade. Interestingly 
this is only 200 more than in the previous 'decade'.
 
The information recorded for each marriage is as follows:
  date
 church
 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
 
The marriages are listed in alphabetical order on the name of the groom.
 
With regard to the grooms, the identities of 94% have been found. The ship of 
arrival is unknown for a further 16 cases. There were 479 convicts or former 
convicts (65%), 154 were soldiers or former soldiers (21%), 58 came free 
(8%) and 7 were colonial born.
 
There were seven couples who remarried after the military interregnum, 
suspecting no doubt that their first marriage may not have been legal, these 
are marked with an asterix (*). 
 
The parish registers only recorded the date of the marriage, the name of the 
groom, the name of the bride, the names of the witnesses and the name of 
the officiating minister. All other information for the marriage has been value 
added either from the shipping indents or the early musters. A hint of the civil 
status of the parties is revealed if the marriage was performed "with the 
consent of the Governor" which would indicate that at least one of the parties 
to the marriage was a serving convict.
 
None of the parish registers recorded the age at marriage. The age at marriage 
is therefore a derived figure, calculated mostly from ages recorded in shipping 
indents but also occasionally from ages in musters and at burials. Only for the 
colonial born is it calculated from a known date of birth. Therefore they 
must be treated as an estimate at best. 
 
The ages of 402 (54%) of the grooms have been calculated, ranging from 17 to 
62 years. 
 
In the normally reliable genealogical source, Michael Flynn's 'Second Fleet 
Convicts' it is stated that William Rayner married Susannah Chapman in Newcastle 
in 1809 but to date no evidence of this marriage has been found indeed it 
is doubtful if any chaplains visited Newcastle at that time. An added 
difficulty is that this marriage would have been bigamous.
 
The Australian Dictionary of Biography states that Michael Massey Robinson 
married Elizabeth Robley in 1806 but again to date no evidence of this marriage 
has been found.
 
The descendants of Thomas Arndell and Elizabeth Burleigh claim they were 
married in 1807 at Green Hills but no confirming record of this marriage has 
been found.
 
The descendants of William Douglas and Mary Cross claim they were married in 
1809 but no confirming record of this marriage has been found.
 
The descendants of Richard Dry claim that he married Ann Maughan Lyons at 
Launceston VDL on the 11th April 1809. How this could be so when the first visit 
by a chaplain to Launceston did not take place until 1811 is a problem.
 
The descendants of Patrick Kirk & Elizabeth Tuckwell give an exact date 
for their marriage (29th January 1810) but no confirming record has verified 
this.
 
There were eight marriages reported in the Sydney Gazette which do not contain 
any more information than is recorded in the various church marriage registers 
with the exception of one; the union of baker John Kenny to Eleanor Gallagher. 
 
The union of shipwright Henry Simpson to the widow Catherine Rourke, on 
the 2nd May 1803, which was reported in the Sydney Gazette as being performed 
by the Rev Dixon of the Church of Rome. As far as is known this is the only 
evidence of Rev Dixon performing any marriages in the colony, although it 
is widely believed that it was he who also married Michael Hayes and 
Elizabeth Baker on Norfolk Island.
 
 Table 10.1.
 
 SPS 357 48%
 SJP 257 35%
 NI 21  3%
 SDH 63 8%
 SMW 36 5%
 Other 8 1%

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