Search for content in message boards

legal documents for marriage

legal documents for marriage

Posted: 2 Mar 2015 3:46PM GMT
Classification: Query
Hi all,

the information on BMD certificates in the UK is rather scarce, which makes it difficult to research a family tree with certainty.
To give you an example, a Belgian marriage certificate would give you names, birth date and place, occupation, residence, full (maiden) names of the parents and their date and place of death (if deceased), names of previous spouses and the date of their death or the divorce. All this information needed to be proven, so each marriage certificate has a bunch of "addenda": copies of the birth certificates of both spouses, death certificates for the parents if they were deceased, a certificate saying that the groom has fulfilled his military service (or not) and - when applicable - the couples inscription in the poor's register.

Does this exist in the UK as well? Or didn't they need to prove anything?

To be more specific: one of my forefathers has some information on his marriage certificate in 1852. I can't find anything on him before that date, though. Some of my contacts said that maybe he lied about his birth year and place, the name of his father or even his own name. Is there any way to check the information he gave? Did they indeed keep these extra records, or did they just believe anything someone said?
In Belgium, as said above, you needed (and still need) a copy of your birth certificate to get married, so there is no way of lying about that. That's why I'm a bit reluctant to believe that the information on his marriage certificate can be completely wrong.

Second question is: from the late 1830's onwards, the "official" BMD registration was installed. But did the parish priests keep their own set of registers as well? And if they did, why aren't they online? Would I need to go to the parish church and hope that they kept the books, or to the national archives?

Regards,
Tom

Re: legal documents for marriage

Posted: 2 Mar 2015 5:20PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 2 Mar 2015 5:26PM GMT
Yes, there are lies on marriage certificates.

Some useful links:

BMD Certificate Tutorials: http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/indexbd.htm
Researching From Abroad: http://www.genuki.org.uk/ab/

See the Board Information link on the England/Feneral message board for more links.

Parish registers, even after 1837, the start of civil registration, are wonderful sources of information. See GENUKI http://www.genuki.org.uk for links to the county in which your ancestors lived. Go to that county page and information about parish registers can be found. If you're fortunate, there may be an Online Parish Clerks project for the county. FamilySearch.org has some parish registers online and some on film, copies of which can be rented through your local Latter Day Saints family research library.

For more local information, post on the appropriate county board and include specifics about your ancestors (names, dates, etc.) To determine which is the appropriate county board, put the name of the town, hamlet, city, etc., into GENUKI's Gazetteer http://www.genuki.org.uk/cgi-bin/gaz

It's also very useful to subscribe to and post to the surname list that matches your ancestor's name as well as the location list. See http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ and http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/index.html to find mailing lists.

Hope those links get you started.
per page

Find a board about a specific topic