Marriages of long ago, were not like those of today. Today we get married any time of the month or anytime of the year. But long ago in many communities you could not get married when you wanted to. In the summer months more important things than marriage took place, the planting and harvestion of the crops. Then the church had regulations, cannot marry during Lent or Advent,Christmas ,Good Friday and Easter.So they had to plan their marriages before or after these restrictions. And even then it was sometimes not easy to do, especially if they did not have a priest at their disposal all the time. A priest would come into the villages and perform a lot of marriages the same day.One Father Girouard went to Cheticamp and on the 9th of January 1872 he married twenty couples. And the priests also had to make sure the couples were not closely related (consanguinity).
I have mentioned this before, possibly in other blogs of mine, but when my parents got married, my mother was barely 14 and my father was 9 years older than her. My grandfather was very strict,( but can you imagine what he would he thought of this) but he was away working, Mom knew he would not let her marry my father, so my parents to be used to meet on a little wooden bridge in the middle of nowhere and make their plans, when the time was right, they took the train ,went into town and went to a baptist church and got married. So they thought they had it made ,grin. When the parish priest found out they were not married catholic, that was not accepted so he went to where they were staying, told Mom to go home, and told Dad to do the same until he got permission from the bishop of St John to marry them catholic. The priest received permission and married them. When my granfather returned and found them married , he was not a happy man.
So my parents had two marriage certificates to show of their marriage.
Now the beginning of my blog was partly taken from the genalogy book of Cheticamp ,the Poirier family.
Well I hope you enjoyed reading today's blog, and stop by again, you never know what I will blog about next.
Have a great day.
Aline