Recording Near-Marriages
On a tangent to the current thread "When Parents Are Not Partners"...
I'm interested in finding out how others record marriages that are only intended. I've found quite a number of family marriage licenses in county record books that are "returned unexecuted". In other words, there was an engagement or an intention to marry but for some reason the wedding itself was never performed. (This is different from the cases discovered in which the marriage was performed and recorded, but with the annotation "Do Not Publish.)
Obviously, such cases could be recorded in note or event fields, but it seems to me that perhaps another status for the marriage event itself could be made available, in addition to Marriage, Unmarried, or Common Law. Perhaps a status labeled "Marriage Not Finalized" that would be broad enough to cover instances of broken engagements or parental barring of a marriage. It seems to me that such "almost" marriages were significant enough in the lives of the intended spouses that such situations would merit a more formal notice as a near-marriage, rather than being relegated to a note field.
Thoughts
I'm interested in finding out how others record marriages that are only intended. I've found quite a number of family marriage licenses in county record books that are "returned unexecuted". In other words, there was an engagement or an intention to marry but for some reason the wedding itself was never performed. (This is different from the cases discovered in which the marriage was performed and recorded, but with the annotation "Do Not Publish.)
Obviously, such cases could be recorded in note or event fields, but it seems to me that perhaps another status for the marriage event itself could be made available, in addition to Marriage, Unmarried, or Common Law. Perhaps a status labeled "Marriage Not Finalized" that would be broad enough to cover instances of broken engagements or parental barring of a marriage. It seems to me that such "almost" marriages were significant enough in the lives of the intended spouses that such situations would merit a more formal notice as a near-marriage, rather than being relegated to a note field.
Thoughts
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