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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Topic started by: elricks on Friday 02 February 24 23:17 GMT (UK)
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in 1837 the marriage forms changed due to 1837 Civil registration.
In 1850 it became possible for couples to marry in the registry office.
There are many repositories that give access to the original record of marriages after 1850 that were celebrated in churches.
Do you know if any of the marriages that were conducted in the registry office, and that would have used the same certificate, are available on line? I know it is possible to purchase copies, but seeing as I am a subscriber to FindMyPast, and a dedicated user of Family Search, I want to explore other options first.
Also whilst thinking about this, is there any way to tell from any index of marriages if a post 1850 marriage was in the Office, or in a church?
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The marriage registers found in record offices and online are those which were held by churches, which usually deposit their registers with the record office when full. The copies of these registers, and the marriage registers used by the register office, are kept by the register office for the purpose of producing copy certificates, so any marriages which took place at a register office or e.g. at a nonconformist church which did not have its own register will not be available at a records office or online.
If the marriage registers at a register office have been indexed e.g. by a local family history society then you should be able to find out at which church a marriage took place. The exception is if it was registered in the registrar's marriage book, in which case it could have been either a register office wedding or a marriage in e.g. a non.confirmist church Most of these indexes can be found at ukbmd.org.uk.
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And this site is useful for identifying locations.
If it isn’t there, one assumes a registry office (although I think there may be some exceptions it is still a very handy tool)
https://one-name.org/marriage-locator/
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In 1850 it became possible for couples to marry in the registry office.
Where does 1850 come from?
Marriages in register offices began in 1837, as a result of the Marriage Act of 1836
http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/View?path=Browse/Legislation%20%28by%20date%29&active=yes&mno=4043
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And this site is useful for identifying locations.
If it isn’t there, one assumes a registry office (although I think there may be some exceptions it is still a very handy tool)
https://one-name.org/marriage-locator/
This site is far from complete. It is very useful when it works but better in some areas than others. It would benefit from everyone submitting non-con. and registry office marriages they know of, but there does not seem to be a simple way of doing this, apart from sending an email via the Guild of One Name Studies, which I did once. It was gratefully received.
Also it is not clear how to volunteer to index registers which are in record offices. It only requires noting the first and last marriage in each quarter in each church so it occurs to me that a lot could be done at home using online search sources. It does not depend on absolutely accurate transcription, simply identifying the "marker" events for each quarter which are then matched with the page numbers in FreeBMD.
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There is also at least one case (Manchester) where the historic Register Office registers have been transferred to the Record Office. Unfortunately they remain subject to the same restrictions and cannot be inspected, you still have to apply for a copy certificate.
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This sounds like the Registry Office running out of storage space, but is there a legal restriction on their being out of the custody of the Registrar? Record offices are accustomed to accepting records closed for various periods of time but very unusual to have records which will never be opened.
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Also whilst thinking about this, is there any way to tell from any index of marriages if a post 1850 marriage was in the Office, or in a church?
It has been suggested that you can get a rough idea from the GRO register numbers. For example if you select a year, quarter and registration district on freebmd and no names you can see the range of numbers. Apparently churches are listed first so the very high numbers could be Registry office or registrar attended
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Molly, as far as I remember it was stated that the only difference would be that you sent your application to a different address for those years.
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Does not the local BMD indexes tell you whether the marrige was in a recognised church? If not a recognised church, it says Civil Marriage or Registrar attended. See https://www.cheshirebmd.org.uk/marriagesearch.php.
Ray
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Does not the local BMD indexes tell you whether the marrige was in a recognised church? If not a recognised church, it says Civil Marriage or Registrar attended. See https://www.cheshirebmd.org.uk/marriagesearch.php.
Ray
That is correct, as I said in my reply above, but unfortunately not all register offices have had their records indexed in this way. Check ukbmd.org.uk to see which counties have at least some indexes.
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The problem with this is that you may find a marriage that says Register Office or Registrar attended. Catholic marriages were Registrar attended. You wont find out more till you buy the cert.
CD
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The problem with this is that you may find a marriage that says Register Office or Registrar attended. Catholic marriages were Registrar attended. You wont find out more till you buy the cert.
CD
Registrar attended also applies to any marriage not conducted under the auspices of Church of England.
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Registrar attended also applies to any marriage not conducted under the auspices of Church of England.
Not quite true, once a Nonconformist Church is licensed a Registrar does not attend. It will simply say married by Certificate rather than by Banns or Licence.
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In 1837 C of E ministers automatically became empowered to conduct registrations of marriages, and return the details to the local registrar. C of E churches had two registers, one of which belongs to the local registrar and is sent there when full. The other is now deposited under C of E rules at a record office designated by the diocese, which is the copy we can access.
As far as I understand, the registrar had a separate register for each Non-Con church, which was taken there and brought back every time the "Registrar Attended". There would also be a register used for Registry Office marriages. The rules changed somewhere around 1900, to allow Non-Cons to register their own marriages if they wished, so after that they had two registers.
The marriage locator works on the principal that the local returns to the GRO were assembled in a regular order, C of E first, in alphabetical order of church, followed by Non-Con & RC in a set order, then Registry Office. Therefore within one district, the page numbers at the GRO for each quarter were similar for each church, but not identical. The first part can be "solved" from registers in record offices, but the pattern of the higher page numbers depends upon extracting information from registers we are not allowed to see.
You could say we have a lack of Freedom of Information due to religious discrimination which occurred between 1837-1900!
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Many thanks, Jebber. I was married in a Register Office, back in the day, but not by Licence!
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The rules changed somewhere around 1900, to allow Non-Cons to register their own marriages if they wished, so after that they had two registers.
It was the Marriage Act 1898 which made it possible, although not all non-conformist churches took up the option for a long time afterwards ( and some never have).
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Thank you Anthony, I knew you would know the details!
There was an occasion when a methodist congregation had nearly folded, some records had been handed in to the circuit, and then they came to an agreement with the C of E to share its church. They proposed to take the early 20th cent. marriage register back, but it was pointed out it belonged to premises registered for marriage, so could not be used elsewhere.