Henk,
I have been traveling and have not read all of the posting on
this thread; however, I thought I might try to explain why it
appears that two marriage records are present.
I have found in the Oldenburg records that the priests were very
good about recording "dimissoriales" where instead of recording the
marriage they recorded who was dimissed to marry someone in
another parish and typically in which town this would occur.
Thus, there were not two marriage records, rather just one and
in the other parish a dimissoriales.
With these older marriage records, priests would not always record
the parents names so that one definitely has to look to marriage
witnesses and baptismal sponsors of the couple's children to identify
the right families.
It becomes even more difficult in a town where there are large
concentrations of the same family with all the cousins sharing the
same few first names. In which case you basically have to identify
all baptismal, marriage, and death entries in the registers in order
to better identify and align everyone. Obviously, this is quite an
undertaking and costly unless you do it yourself and have easy
access to the records.
Thus, the reality is that as we go back further in time - the records
become less specific and detailed leaving the possibility for greater
mistakes or a greater amount of uncertainty in identifying the correct
family lines.
Another way researchers have been able to identify the families is
to see if the family follows any local customs for naming their
children.
Just a few thoughts to consider.
Bob Behnen
Kirksville, MO