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Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, & Abandoned Lands,
HEAD QUARTERS ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER STATE OF VIRGINIA.
Richmond, Va., March 19th, 1866.
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CIRCULAR No. 11.
The following Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia and instructions relating thereto are published for the information of the Officers and Agents of this Bureau, and all other persons concerned:
"An Act to amend an re-enact the Fourteenth Section of Chapter One Hundred and Eight of the Code of Virginia for Eighteen Hundred and Sixty, in regard to Registers of Marriage, and to legalize the marriages of colored persons, now cohabiting as husband and wife." Passed February 27th, 1866.
"I. Henceforth, it shall be the duty of every minister or other person celebrating a marriage, and of the clerk or keeper of records of any religious society, and of the clerk or keeper of records of any religious society, which solemnizes marriages, by the consent of the parties, between white persons or between colored persons, solemnized by or before him, stating in such record whether the persons be white or colored, and within two months after such marriage to return a copy thereof, signed by him, to the Clerk of the County or Corporation in which the same is solemnized. The clerk issuing any marriage license, shall at the time require and ascertain from the party obtaining such license a certificate setting forth, as near as may be, the date and place of the proposed marriage, the full names of both the parties, their ages and conditions before marriage (whether single or widowed), the places of their birth and residence, the names of their parents and the occupation of the husband.
"II. Where colored persons, before the passage of this Act shall have undertaken and agreed to occupy the relation to each other of husband and wife, and shall be cohabiting together as such at the time of its passage, whether the rites of marriage shall have been celebrated between them or not, they shall be deemed husband and wife, and be entitled to the rights and privileges, and subject to the duties and obligations of that relation in like manner as if they had been duly married by law, and all their children shall be deemed legitimate, whether born before or after

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