can you trust the information on a marriage certificate

[silvery]

In more recent times (although not as recent as all that  ) my own father decided to call himself a different first name for his marriage to my mum.    I knew it was definitely her.    He only ever had one first name according to his registration and it wasn't that one.   

Had I been looking in (say) Victorian times for a branch of the family ancestors where this happened I might never have found the marriage.

But all sorts of things happen.   

[carol8353]

I have one where the grooms name was John,he signed as John,but the vicar and therefore the GRO index has writtne him in as JAMES!

Every generation of that family had a John and then a George,we have no James's 

[VivienR]

Well I guess I might be right after all.

 I ordered the marriage record from the GRO - does that make it more official?
I think I might have to order his death certificate to see what information that has as far as parents go.
Thanks
Vivien

[Ruskie]

Do you have his birth certificate to see what this says his father's name is? 

[Billyblue]

IN answer to your original question ... it ain't necessarily so!

As well as all the other instances recorded here...
My favourite aunt was my Dad's youngest sister.  We had her marriage certificate which showed her having the same parents my Dad had.  But when I decided to get her birth certificate because I knew it would list all her older siblings and their ages (my dad was one of "11" and couldn't remember everyone's details correctly at that stage)...... we discovered that said aunt was actually his niece, having been born out of wedlock to his elder sister and her subsequent husband.
So the parents listed on her marriage certificate were actually her grandparents.

She may not have known the truth herself, at the time of her marriage.
A bit of a shock to her kids!  And I had to be the one to tell them         

Dawn M

[carol8353]

Well I guess I might be right after all.

 I ordered the marriage record from the GRO - does that make it more official?
I think I might have to order his death certificate to see what information that has as far as parents go.
Thanks
Vivien

The marriage certificate is the same no matter where you order it from.

The death cert will not have any information about his parents.
See here as to what it will show http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/deaths.htm

Carol

[Alexander.]

The marriage certificate is the same no matter where you order it from.

In theory that is true, but not always in practice. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has certificates that differ slightly in the GRO copies from the local office copies. The registers at the local offices were copied quarterly and sent to the GRO. Therefore, GRO certificates were rewritten an extra time, and as whoever copied them out was only human, there are bound to be errors. The local register copies are a step closer to the original than the GRO copies.

Vivien, did they marry in a church? If so, it would be worth tracking down the parish register. It should in theory contain the exact same information, but for marriages in churches, the PR is the original source of any info on a GRO marriage certificate.

So there is a chance a mistake was made during the copying process from the parish register to the local register to the GRO register.

Alexander

[jc26red]

The death cert will not have any information about his parents.
See here as to what it will show http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/deaths.htm

That is true for England, Wales and Ireland death certs.

Australian ones have parents names if known and I believe Canadian ones might have the father's name (father's name is listed on the Ancestry Ontario death index images so I'm guessing its also on the actual cert, whether thats applies to all states I don't know). I don't have any US certs to know what details are included.

[carol8353]

The death cert will not have any information about his parents.
See here as to what it will show http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/deaths.htm

That is true for England, Wales and Ireland death certs.

Australian ones have parents names if known and I believe Canadian ones might have the father's name (father's name is listed on the Ancestry Ontario death index images so I'm guessing its also on the actual cert, whether thats applies to all states I don't know). I don't have any US certs to know what details are included.

But as the OP had ordered it from the GRO I was presuming that we ARE talking about an English one here