Using Marriage Contracts to Trace Your Family Tree

Marriage contracts are just one type of deed that can be very useful when you are tracing your family tree. As well as detailing the persons getting married they frequently mention other family members including parents, siblings and sometimes even more distant family members. They were usually drawn up by families who had land or wealth of some kind. If your family worked on the land rather than owned the land you are unlikely to find a marriage contract. 

There was no legal obligation to register a marriage contract, it was a private document. As a fee would be involved in registering the document it was often only done if and when it became necessary. For example, a marriage contract could be dated 12 July 1735 but only registered on 20 December 1769; as you can see in this entry on our website index. 

Finding these marriage contracts without an index can be challenging and time-consuming. That is why we have decided to begin indexing sections of the Register of Deeds that are currently un-indexed. We hope this project will uncover many genealogical gems that will help you and others research your family tree.

So far we have indexed 1,072 entries… there’s a long way to go! We are indexing these under the ‘Sponsor an Index’ initiative: can you help? From just £7 you can be involved in getting Scotland’s historic records online: http://scottishindexes.com/sponsor.aspx