*Archive?* Marriage certificates

[rabbit]

Hello all,

I,m a bit of a newcomer to Genealogy and would like to ask the following question:

When you order a marriage certificate from the GRO do you get a copy of the original or do you get a copy of a copy? The reason I ask is because the certificate I want I would like the bride and grooms signature to be theirs and not hand written by someone else.

Thanks

Rabbit

[Antie Em]

This depends on where you are ordering it from, register offices differ and sometimes you get a typed copy. Mainly the ones I've had from the main GRO have been copies of the original - which is lovely because you have the signatures. Might be worth giving them a call though here : http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

Sometimes, you can get copies from the local archives, for a fraction of the price, and these are definitely copies of the originals, what area are you looking at?

Maggie

[Antie Em]

Sorry - forgot to say Hello Rabbit - welcome to the forum

Maggie

[rabbit]

This depends on where you are ordering it from, register offices differ and sometimes you get a typed copy. Mainly the ones I've had from the main GRO have been copies of the original - which is lovely because you have the signatures. Might be worth giving them a call though here : http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

Sometimes, you can get copies from the local archives, for a fraction of the price, and these are definitely copies of the originals, what area are you looking at?

Maggie

This is a bit long winded - but here goes:
Two people I am researching got married in 1926 in Wolverhampton. On a certificate I have seen from one of their relatives the brides surname is not her real surname and the bridegroons name has been spelt wrong. When I searched the index's I found the bridegroom's entry and the volume number and page number and his surname spelt correctly. When I clicked on 'find spouse' I got a negative answer. But when I searched the index for the bride I got the same volume number and page number. The bride at the time was pregnant and she gave birth to a daughter 4 months after the marriage and on the birth certificate for the daughter the mother's name is the real one. The certificate I have seen makes me wonder if it is a handwritten copy (the writting al the same, signatures printed) someone has copied it incorrectly. I cannot give the names because some of the brides children are still living. Could it be that the bride used a different name to avoid embarrising her family, it was a church wedding and there are no photographs of the wedding anywhere and her living children have no answers.
Rabbit

[snoopysue]

There are mistakes in the indexes, I've come across this several times where the bride or groom isn't where they should be. This can be because the transcriber couldn't read the writing from the original records, but could also be when the index's were digitised. Quite often there isn't the same number of bride's and grooms for the same page, and sometimes one will be there twice with a different spelling.

A different spelling on the certificate is not unusual, especially if the people concerned aren't literate. As for the wrong name - it may be whoever's supplying the info that's made a mistake - for example on a birth certificate if the person doing the registering isn't the mother, they may have given the wrong maiden name for the mother.
Of course some mistakes would have been intentional! I have an unmarried (but living with future husband)mother using her future husband's name on several birth certificates a couple of years before they actually tie the knot!
Your case sounds as though it could be complex, especially as with living relatives you have to tread carefully.

[MarkCDodd]

Newer indexes have far less errors.

The oldest index, and the one with the most errors, is FreeBMD.

This is used by Ancestry as well as the FreeBMD site.

Two new indexes released early this year, but done seperately, are on The Genealogist and Find My Past.

They both used better quality scans than FreeBMD and several layers of cross checking so are far more accurate.

But as Snoopsue said, there are many other reasons apart from bad transcriptions for incorrect names.

[Northern Lass]

This depends on where you are ordering it from, register offices differ and sometimes you get a typed copy. Mainly the ones I've had from the main GRO have been copies of the original - which is lovely because you have the signatures. Might be worth giving them a call though here : http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

Sometimes, you can get copies from the local archives, for a fraction of the price, and these are definitely copies of the originals, what area are you looking at?

Maggie

I am not sure that the ones you get are the originals from the GRO
see here...
http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satelli ... rmode=live

it says this
Certificates obtained from the General Register Office are prepared from copies written and sent by the Registrar, Vicar or Authorised Person, therefore they do not show original signatures.


The ones i have got from Dudley have been originals

[Northern Lass]

This depends on where you are ordering it from, register offices differ and sometimes you get a typed copy. Mainly the ones I've had from the main GRO have been copies of the original - which is lovely because you have the signatures. Might be worth giving them a call though here : http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

Sometimes, you can get copies from the local archives, for a fraction of the price, and these are definitely copies of the originals, what area are you looking at?

Maggie

This is a bit long winded - but here goes:
Two people I am researching got married in 1926 in Wolverhampton. On a certificate I have seen from one of their relatives the brides surname is not her real surname and the bridegroons name has been spelt wrong. When I searched the index's I found the bridegroom's entry and the volume number and page number and his surname spelt correctly. When I clicked on 'find spouse' I got a negative answer. But when I searched the index for the bride I got the same volume number and page number. The bride at the time was pregnant and she gave birth to a daughter 4 months after the marriage and on the birth certificate for the daughter the mother's name is the real one. The certificate I have seen makes me wonder if it is a handwritten copy (the writting al the same, signatures printed) someone has copied it incorrectly. I cannot give the names because some of the brides children are still living. Could it be that the bride used a different name to avoid embarrising her family, it was a church wedding and there are no photographs of the wedding anywhere and her living children have no answers.
Rabbit

If you know the church you can look this up at the archives and that will be the original
you can take a copy for a very small fee

[linell]

Yes that's right NL, the GRO are fax copies, the originals are from the Local Registry Office.

Linell.

[rabbit]

Thanks guys & gals for your most helpfull answers.

I'll let you know how I get on. Once again thanks.

Rabbit

[rabbit]

Hello again,

I have eventually solved the mystery of the marriage certificate that had the grooms name correct but the brides was a different name (see posts). I searched the index's and could find nothing for the brides real name. As the couple were married in Wolverhampton we contacted the register office there. They told us that the records had been moved to Stafford. We contacted Stafford record office gave them all the information we had regarding the bride and groom. They came back to us and told us that on the day of the marriage there were two marriages from the same street, our bride and one other, and a mistake was made when the certificates for both marriages were made out at the church. The records in the index's have not been amended, thats why we could not find any info.

We have copies from Stafford of both the wedding certificates and the bride and groom's names are now correct on both. The person that did the original research and applied for a copy of the certificate, which I was shown, never bothered to check that the certificate was the correct one which is what I set out to do and proved that it was indeed the wrong one; my advice to those of you researching your family history is make sure you have the correct information before applying for cetificates

Regards
Rabbit

[Antie Em]

Hello Rabbit - so glad you found the correct certificate at last

Maggie

[grangers14]

Glad you followed it through and got it right in the end! Worth the trouble Im sure
Jo

[grangers14]

Can this be archived?
Jo