Xmas marriages and christenings

[Joy Dean]

Could it be that workers did not have to work on Christmas Day so no loss of wages and I think for ordinary working people there was a lot less fuss around a wedding than there is these days . Families would probably be going to church together anyway so why not include a wedding / baptism while you're there anyway and no charge on Christmas and Boxing Day I think . I've certainly found several baptisms on Christmas Day on different lines in my research over the years . No weddings yet so far though. Oh and welcome to the forum.
Liz

In relatively recent times, my aunt and uncle married on Boxing Day in 1938.

[Richard in Perth]

I just did some quick stats on my own family tree file. I have 1620 marriages for which I have an exact date; the earliest being 10-Dec-1561 and the latest being 30-Mar-2012. Of these 1620 marriages, no less than 38 of them (2.3%) were on Christmas Day, 18 (1.1%) were on Christmas Eve and 13 (0.8%) were on Boxing Day. This is compared with the average of 5 per day (0.3%) which you would expect if the marriages were distributed evenly throughout the year. No other day of the year has such an anomalously high number. Therefore I would say that in my experience at least, there is a statistically significant increase in marriages on or around Christmas Day.

The Christmas Day marriages in my file range from 1829 to 1943. 29 of the 38 were in Greater London, though this is probably due to the online availability of the LMA records meaning that I am more likely to have an exact date for marriages occurring here than elsewhere in the country.

[Guy]

For Guy:

http://www.stgite.org.uk/media/registers2.html

Scroll down to St Marks, where the Xmas Day marriages are given in brackets - but the whole web page is a truly fascinating read and shows how some clergymen operated to their own rules about baptism, for instance.

OC

Yes thanks for that OC, very helpful, I found the site earlier after you had posted the comment about St George in the East.

I am still very interested in Christmas marriages and when they occurred.
I will have to get hold of the earlier St Marks marriage register to see if there was any earlier history of Christmas marriages.
Cheers
Guy

[Guy]

Thanks to everyone who has answered.
I don't want to hijack this thread but it would help me if those who had Christmas Day wedding on their trees or know of churches which conducted such marriages would PM me with brief details (name of church/parish, dates) then I can add them to my database of Christmas weddings.

If the subject is of general interest then by all means post on the thread. ;)
Cheers
Guy

[LynB]

Thanks to everyone who has answered.
I don't want to hijack this thread but it would help me if those who had Christmas Day wedding on their trees or know of churches which conducted such marriages would PM me with brief details (name of church/parish, dates) then I can add them to my database of Christmas weddings.
Cheers
Guy

If the subject is of general interest then by all means post on the thread. ;)


I'm having trouble with posting here at the moment ('scuse the newbie) - lots of messages just disappear into the ether. Please be gebtle with me while I get the hang of it, this forum is very different from others I have used! Guy, I hadn't figured out how to add your message to my reply when I posted orignaly so I'm copying in my earlier post in case you missed it:

"Thank you for your comments Guy; if it's any help to your research my Xmas wedding couple were EDWARD JOHN BOUNDY to ELIZABETH HERD, married on Xmas day 1888 at the parish chirch in Davidstowe, Cornwall by banns. If there's any more info that would be helpful just let me know."

....

[Richard in Perth]

Using some of the databases on Ancestry, I've compiled some statistics for Xmas Day marriages across the country. I didn't use all the available databases on Ancestry as some of them have marriages & banns combined with no way to filter out only the marriages, so I was not able to use these. The stats below are for all marriages in each database that have a date included (not all the records do!), compared with all marriages that occurred on December 25. I've divided the Ancestry totals by 2 as each marriage is listed twice in the database (once for the bride and once for the groom). I have then calculated the percentage of marriages occurring on Xmas Day, and from this calculated the number of times more likely a marriage occurred on Xmas day compared with the average (the latter being 1/365, or approx 0.27%).

Interesting is the variation in the stats around the country. For all England, Xmas Day marriages were 5x more frequent than an average day, whereas for Wales they were only 2x, and in Scotland they were no more frequent than any other day. Within England, Xmas Day marriages in London were a massive 14x more frequent, in Surrey they were 7x, in Warwickshire 5x and in Wiltshire only 3x. These stats are quite robust due to the large datasets in each case. Also they cover numerous churches which should eliminate any bias caused by any local rules or customs of a particular parish - however, they obviously do not include register office marriages, nor do many of these databases include RC or non-con churches. Nevertheless it does seem that for whatever reason, an Xmas Day marriage tradition was quite prevalent in England and particularly in London.

Ancestry database	total dated marriages	marriages on Xmas Day	Percentage marriages on Xmas Day	Xmas Day marriages vs average
England Select Marriages 1538–1973	14,396,063	178,907	1.2%	5
Scotland Select Marriages 1561-1910	2,045,520	6,212	0.3%	1
Wales Select Marriages 1541-1900	38,854	193	0.5%	2
London England Marriages and Banns 1754-1921	2,802,276	108,343	3.9%	14
Warwickshire England, Marriages and Banns 1754-1910	283,850	3,777	1.3%	5
Surrey, England Marriages 1754-1937	304,627	5,966	2.0%	7
Wiltshire, England, Marriages, 1538-1837	259,685	2,227	0.9%	3

[Olde Crone Holden]

Richard

That is a splendid piece of work!

An observation - I lived in Scotland for a few years in the early 1960s and if I remember correctly, Xmas Day was not a public holiday, nor was it celebrated in the way we celebrate it in England. (I expect that has changed now that Commercial Interests rule). That would lend weight to the "public holiday" theory to explain the popularity of Xmas Day weddings in England, plus the waiving of fees in many churches. I doubt if ease of catering had much to do with it because most humble people wouldn't have made much of a culinary fuss on either day, but it would of course allow for relatives to attend, who couldn't on a working day.

OC

[Guy]

Richard

That is a splendid piece of work!

An observation - I lived in Scotland for a few years in the early 1960s and if I remember correctly, Xmas Day was not a public holiday, nor was it celebrated in the way we celebrate it in England. (I expect that has changed now that Commercial Interests rule). That would lend weight to the "public holiday" theory to explain the popularity of Xmas Day weddings in England, plus the waiving of fees in many churches. I doubt if ease of catering had much to do with it because most humble people wouldn't have made much of a culinary fuss on either day, but it would of course allow for relatives to attend, who couldn't on a working day.

OC

Totally agree OC, splendid piece of work.
I can confirm Christmas Day was not a public holiday in Scotland in the early 60s, but not sure when it became one.
Cheers
Guy

[Olde Crone Holden]

Hm. One site says Xmas Day was not a public holiday in Scotland until the 1950s - I would dispute that, as I certainly remember my father having to work on Christmas Day 1963 - we didn't have our dinner and open our presents until 6pm!

Another point about Scotland I've just remembered - many marriages took place in private homes, not churches and therefore the fees would probably be the same whatever day you married.

OC

[Anne in Carlisle]

I'm preparing a list for Guy (taking longer than I expected!) in doing so I came accross a certificate for a marriage on Christmas Day in a Register Office in London. Don't have the details to hand at the moment but it was late 1800s. Thought that was v interesting.
Anne

[Guy]

Thanks Anne, most appreciated, I would also be very interested in that Register Office wedding, I don't think I have heard of one on Christmas Day before.
Cheers
Guy

[Anne in Carlisle]

Will send you a scan, Guy. I hope I can get it done before I go away on Friday but might not!
Anne

[Richard in Perth]

Hi Anne. I'm surprised that a register office would even be open on Christmas Day - especially since the presumed reason for the large number of church weddings on that day was because it was a public holiday. It's not like public servants to miss out on a day off, after all! Could yours possibly have been a registrar-attended marriage, e.g. at a Roman Catholic church?

[Anne in Carlisle]

I have the certificate Richard! It was amongst the big One Name Study stuff .... hence me not picking it up earlier. The certificate says 'The Register Office, Southwark' (think its Southwark, I don't have the info to hand at this moment). The year was 1875. Think Charles Dickens and Christmas Carol .... I think there was less closure in those days.
I have scanned it for Guy and you are welcome to a scan if you PM me your email address.
Anne

[JudithM]

I think we need to recognise the difference between Bank Holiday and Public Holiday. Whilst banks have closed on Christmas Day as far back as 1837 and beyond , many businesses and organisations stayed open on Christmas Day both in Victorian times, and much more recently. I have a clear recollection of some shops open and post, milk etc being delivered on Christmas Day - the GPO didn't stop Christmas Day postal deliveries until 1960 in England.

[Anne in Carlisle]

Ha Ha!! Just shows you shouldn't try to recall details whilst travelling on a train.
The year was 1873 and the Register Office was Shoreditch.
Close ..... !!!
Anne

[JudithM]

Have just come across a reference by Jill on the A272 to a birth being registered on CHristmas Day http://www.familytreeforum.com/showt...-Christmas-Day

[Richard in Perth]

OK, well if most businesses and even the registry offices were open on Christmas Day, that kind of discredits the theory that people chose that day to marry because it was a holiday! Maybe then it was that churches offered free or discounted weddings on that day, as suggested earlier in the thread?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Richard

No, the holiday theory still stands I think, because although it wasn't a public holiday for everyone, it would have been a holiday for rural/ag labs etc.

OC

[dicole]

I sent Guy a list of the All Saints Martock, Somerset (a moderate size market town) marriages on Christmas Day - from 1559 to 1930 there were 30 marriages on 25 Dec. I checked to see if Christmas Day might have fallen on a particular day (like Saturday) but they appeared to be on every day of the week.

In Sparsholt, Hamsphire, from 1630-1930 there were 8 marriages on Christmas Day. And none from 1634-1812 in Clee St Margaret, Shropshire. Very little parish activity in Clee around Christmas - only 3 weddings at all in the Christmas-New Year period.

May be Christmas marriages were more popular in the big cities ?