PACHESTE-L Archives

From: Judy Ardine <>
Subject: [PACHESTE] Early PA Marriages
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 05:49:52 -0400

The thought occurs that early PA marriages, especially those for COE folk,
may well be on record in England.

Why? Because when numbers were small and no churches had been established,
there were COE clergy who traveled throughout the "colonies" and who
performed marriages, etc. in their travels. I've found mention in some
Cecil cnty, MD material indicating that many times these records were sent
back to England or carried back to England w/the clergy when they returned
there.

These COE clergy were often sent to the colonies by the Lord Bishop of
London. It might well be to the advantage of those researching early COE
families in the "colonies" to ascertain where the "headquarters" for COE
records in England are stored and to contact that office for information.

Also, often the rector of an established church served not only his local
church but traveled to other settlements of that religion and thus records
for some marriages may well be found w/in the records of an unexpected
congregation or church some distance away.

And, to some, a marriage performed by "any" religious cleric was better
than no marriage ceremony at all and thus they may have married "outside
their faith" because there was no clergy of their religion available.

In 1775 "travel time" from Philadelphia to Chester was approximately 4
hours and travel time from Chester to New Castle was approximately 5 hours.
How much longer travel time would have been involved some 75-100 years earlier?

This thread:

• [PACHESTE] Early PA Marriages by Judy Ardine <>