Re: Marriages in Registry office query
Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 4:56 pm
This is all getting a bit confusing. I understand it like this:
After 1837 marriages could take place in a registry office, parish church, or non-conformist church. I think each church sent a copy of the record to their local office, and they are now also all together at the General Record office too.
If a marriage took place then it should be recorded in those records, and they have been indexed by name, year and quarter. The indexes can be seen at your local records office or via Ancestry etc.
FreeBMD site has a lot of the marriages in their database so you can search on there for free (tells you year and quarter, and names of other people on the same page so you can often work out the spouse) http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
BMSGH has information about marriages in that area and if you find a record listed it will tell you the name of the spouse, year, and which church or registry office. http://www.bmsgh.org/wmbmd/index.html
The BMSGH list is from the local registry offices' records, not the general index. That is why it gives the name of the spouse and the church. The coverage is not complete but the website will show what is available.
The FBMD list is not complete either, but almost so for early years, and the site shows what the coverage is.
If you can't find a marriage on FreeBMD or BMSGH then you could go through the indexes which are on Ancestry - each quarter of each year has the names listed alphabetically so unless you know the exact year you have to seach systematically through a range of years (backwards from birth of first child perhaps).
A marriage might be listed under a variation/mis-spelling of the surname.
The couple might have married earlier or later than expected - possibly several years later.
Or they may never have married at all!
In theory though, if they married then they are in the GRO index for marriages.
After 1837 marriages could take place in a registry office, parish church, or non-conformist church. I think each church sent a copy of the record to their local office, and they are now also all together at the General Record office too.
If a marriage took place then it should be recorded in those records, and they have been indexed by name, year and quarter. The indexes can be seen at your local records office or via Ancestry etc.
FreeBMD site has a lot of the marriages in their database so you can search on there for free (tells you year and quarter, and names of other people on the same page so you can often work out the spouse) http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
BMSGH has information about marriages in that area and if you find a record listed it will tell you the name of the spouse, year, and which church or registry office. http://www.bmsgh.org/wmbmd/index.html
The BMSGH list is from the local registry offices' records, not the general index. That is why it gives the name of the spouse and the church. The coverage is not complete but the website will show what is available.
The FBMD list is not complete either, but almost so for early years, and the site shows what the coverage is.
If you can't find a marriage on FreeBMD or BMSGH then you could go through the indexes which are on Ancestry - each quarter of each year has the names listed alphabetically so unless you know the exact year you have to seach systematically through a range of years (backwards from birth of first child perhaps).
A marriage might be listed under a variation/mis-spelling of the surname.
The couple might have married earlier or later than expected - possibly several years later.
Or they may never have married at all!
In theory though, if they married then they are in the GRO index for marriages.
but I know what should be there! 