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Quaker Monthly Meeting - An Introduction
The records kept by Friends Monthly
Meetings during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries usually consisted
of a record of births and deaths, a record of
marriage certificates,
and minutes covering all proceedings and discussions coming before the
monthly sessions of the meeting. As the men and women met
separately, two sets of minutes were kept. In some meetings
the marriage records were kept in the same book with the birth and death
records; in others they were kept in a separate book. The
birth and death records are never complete. In some cases
whole families are omitted; sometimes the older children of a family are
recorded and the younger ones omitted. The percentage of
births recorded appears to be considerably higher than that of
deaths. In only a few meetings was it the practice to record
the birth dates and parentage of the father and mother of a family.
Place of birth was not usually recorded, for either parents or
children.
None of the earlier meeting records contains a list of
the membership. When a monthly meeting was divided, to establish a new
one, all members of the old meeting who lived within the verge of the new
automatically became members of the new meeting without any list of their
names being entered in the records of either meeting. A person
who became a member in this way, unless he took some active part in the
affairs of the meeting, was married, or was complained of for some breach
of discipline, might continue in membership until the end of his life
without his name ever appearing in the records.
The records of
marriage certificates are much more complete than the birth and death
records. In a few meetings every marriage accomplished in the
meeting is fully recorded. Others are nearly complete, with
only a few carriages missing.
Since the regular procedure in
marriage involved two appearances of the couple before both men's and
women's meetings prior to marriage and subsequent reports of the
committees appointed to attend the marriage ceremony, there is ample
record of each marriage in the minutes even though recording of the
marriage certificate may have been overlooked. The record in
the minutes, however, does not give the names of the parents of the
persons married nor the exact date of marriage. The
report of the committee that the marriage had been accomplished was made
at the next succeeding meeting, thus fixing the date within a
month.
The minutes of sessions of the monthly meetings cover many
subjects, but only those having genealogical interest have been
incorporated in this book. During the periods of migration the
minutes relating to certificates of membership received and issued are the
most numerous and have the greatest interest. Records of
disciplinary action against members for violation of the rules of the
Society occupy much space.
Members were ,"dealt with" on a great
variety of complaints, including fiddling and dancing, drinking
intoxicating liquor to excess, serving in the militia or other armed
forces, using profane language, fighting, failure to meet financial
obligations, marrying contrary to the order used by Friends, deviation
from plainness in apparel or speech, joining another religious society,
etc. Unless the offending member expressed sorrow for his
misconduct and brought a signed paper condemning the same, he was usually
disowned. The number so disowned runs into
thousands. Many of them, after a shorter or longer time,
produced the necessary paper of condemnation and were reinstated in
membership. A minute showing that a person presented a
satisfactory paper condemning his misconduct, implies that he was retained
or reinstated in membership, as the case might be, whether that fact is
specifically stated or not. Often, following the disownment of
a member (perhaps many years later) the minutes may record a request for
membership coming from a person of the same name, but with no reference to
previous membership or disownment. In such cases it is usually
impossible to tell whether the two minutes refer to the same person or to
two individuals with the same name. A great many of those who were
disowned never asked to be reinstated but remained outside the Society for
the rest of their lives. The names of these persons never
appear in the records again.
When Individual members or families
removed from one monthly meeting to another they were furnished removal
certificates setting forth the fact of their membership in good standing
and recommending them to the fellowship of the monthly meeting to which
they were removing. In the earlier days these certificates
were usually prepared and signed in advance and carried by the members to
their new place of abode.
Later, it appears to have become more the
custom to wait until the new home had been established and then send back
a request that the certificate be forwarded. A condition to the granting
of a certificate was that the member's "outward affairs" be satisfactorily
settled. The certificate usually stated that this had been
done.
When a certificate was issued to a family the fact was
generally recorded in the men's minutes so far as it applied to the
husband and sons, and in the women's minutes as it applied to the mother
and daughters. The names of children were frequently omitted
in the minutes of the issuing meeting but were usually recorded by the
receiving meeting. The fact that John Jones and family (men's
minutes) and Mary Jones and daughters (women's minutes) were granted
certificates to the same meeting on the same day does not guarantee that
John and Mary were husband and wife.
Such an assumption would be
correct in the majority of cases but would sometimes be
erroneous. Confirmatory evidence should always be
sought.
If a man and woman contemplating marriage were members of
different monthly meetings they made their declarations of intention in
the meeting of which the woman was a member. The man was
required to bring a certificate from his meeting stating that he was a
member in good standing and free from marriage engagements with
others.
This certificate did not transfer his membership to the
woman's meeting, but only made it possible for him to marry
there. After marriage, the wife usually obtained a
certificate, issued in her married name, transferring her membership to
her husband's meeting. Marriage contrary to the Friends' order,
variously referred to in the minutes as "marriage by a priest," "outgoing
in marriage," "marriage contrary to good order," "marriage out of unity,"
"marriage contrary to discipline," etc., and spoken of in every day speech
as "marriage out of meeting," was the cause of more complaints and
disownments than any other single offense. Because of the
value of a record of all marriages in tracing family history, these
complaints and disownments have been fully reported In the preparation of
this volume. Unfortunately the minutes rarely give the name of
the person to whom the offending member was married. The
record
relating to a woman usually refers to her as Mary Jones,
formerly Brown, thus giving a clue which is not available in the case of a
man. In a large percentage of cases of marriage contrary to
Friends' order, only one of the parties was a member.
When both
parties to a marriage engagement were members in good standing,
there was usually no reason why they might not apply to the meeting, and
receive permission to marry under its authority, but there were some
exceptions. Marriage between first cousins or others of close
relationship was forbidden by the rules of the Society.
Parental
objection may have been a bar to marriage in meeting in some cases. In
other cases the couple married out of meeting for no other reason than to
accomplish their purpose more quickly and without the formality which was
necessary to a marriage In meeting.
Complaints for most causes
other than marriage contrary to Friends" order, having little historical
or genealogical interest, have been ignored unless they result ed in
disownraent. When they did result in disownment, that fact has
been noted.
In arranging the records for publication, all birth and
death records of each meeting have been grouped together, by families, in
alphabetical order. Some of the meetings kept their birth and
death records in family groups, recording all the children of a father and
mother on one page. In other meetings the items seem to have
been written into the record book in the order in which they were received
by the recorder, with no attempt at family grouping. In such
cases the various children of a single father and mother may have been
recorded on several different pages. Considerable difficulty has been
experienced in the attempt which has been made to collect these scattered
records and group together all the children of the same parents It is
possible that, because of duplication of names, some errors have been
made, although great care has been taken to identify all persons so far as
the information in the original Records makes possible.
In a few cases the children of the same father and mother may have divided
into two groups because of lack of evidence to prove the identical
parentage of the two groups. It is also possible that
there may be cases in which a number of children have been placed in a
single family group
when they should have been divided into two
groups. In some cases the father may have been the same man
with two wives of the same name; in other cases both father and mother may
have been different, but with identical names.
The minutes and
marriage records have been combined in a single section for each meeting
and arranged alphabetically by family names. Marriages have
been recorded, under both family names, but names of the woman's parents
are omitted in the record under the man's family name, and vice
versa. Other items containing two or more names have also been
repeated under each name. The items relating to each family
name have been arranged chronologically.
Almost every meeting in North
Carolina Yearly Meeting has lost one or more of its books of
records. Some are known to have been destroyed by fire; others
have disappeared from view no one knowing what became of them.
The complete records of at least two monthly meetings are
gone. These are Fredericksburg Monthly Meeting, South
Carolina, about 1750 to 1782, and Trent Monthly Meeting, North Carolina,
1792 to 1800. Both were important meetings and much valuable
information has been lost in the disappearance of their
records. Center Monthly Meeting, one of the most important of
all the North Carolina meetings in the historical value of its records,
has lost the early minutes of both men's and women's meeting the men's
minutes
prior to 1835 and the women's minutes prior to
1835. The women's minutes of New Garden Monthly Meeting were
destroyed by fire in 1790, but this loss was not so serious as the cases
just mentioned, since the men's minutes have been preserved in
full.
One of the earliest record books of Perquimans Monthly
Meeting was found early this year in an abandoned house in Perquimans
County. This discovery gives rise to the hope that other
missing books may be found. With a few exceptions, all the record
books which have been abstracted in the preparation of this volume are in
the custody of North Carolina Yearly Meeting in the Guilford College
Library, Guilford College, N. C. The exceptions are noted
in
the historical sketches of the various meetings.
THOMAS W.
MARSHALL
Washington, D. C.
November 4,
1936. |
