Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Ontario Marriage Registers by Clergy (1896-1948)

This fall, Ancestry.ca released the Ontario Marriage Registers by the Clergy database. It houses information on 12,000 marriages listed under the Registration Act of 1896.

Most of the marriages are by Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers.

The ministers had to report the marriages within 30 days of when they took place.

There were pre-printed forms that the ministers had to fill out, and the spaces covered such items as name, age, residence, whether bachelor/spinster or widow/widower, occupation for the groom only, religious denomination, and names of parents.

The record also contained both signatures of the people being married, and the names and addresses of the witnesses.

The database can be found at Ancestry.ca.

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