The marriage of my 5X great-grandparents

One of the things occupying a great deal of my time lately is genealogy.  I tried to create a WordPress blog to write about what I discover every now and then, but I think I'm going to just post here.  I'm not very methodical and organized. I tend to pick a particular person and find out all I can about them. I have no rhyme or reason behind who I pick to work on, it's just whim.

Lately, I've been focusing attention on my earliest maternal ancestors in America - arrivals in the 1630s during the Great Migration of people from England, those who settled at Plymouth Colony and other towns north in Massachusetts. 

I am also rather fascinated by the 18th century ancestors, and their activities during the Revolution.  I am enchanted by coming across this beautiful record of the marriage solemnization of my 5X great-grandparents, Agnes Cowpland and Davis Bevan. I am also excited to discover another Quaker line in the family, as well as the discovery that the Bevans emigrated from Wales.

There is something extraordinary about looking at this document - knowing that they set their eyes on it. Seeing there at the bottom right, the names of Agnes' parents, my 6X great-grandparents.
And wondering if all those Witnesses really 'put their hands' to the signatures.
June 12, 1760.

When my husband and I married, although not Quaker, we used the same simple words for our brief ceremony, each making the declaration to have each other, 'promising with Divine Assistance  to be a faithful and loving' wife/husband 'until Death should separate us.'    Isn't it interesting that I should be so drawn to using the form and words of a faith that I had no actual experience with?  A few years later, I did attend the local Quaker meeting for a time until we moved to Indiana.

I am also interesting in exploring Davis Bevan's history, as he wound up being a Captain and fighting in the Revolution - well-documented in many DAR records. Fighting in a war is at odds with  Quaker beliefs, so that is intriguing to me.


 (Source: Ancestry.com Certificates of Marriage Record, Chester Monthly Meeting, Chester, PA )