Genealogy Chat

Are the marriages that are had with bigamists still in the records or are they deleted as the marriage is disolved?

A friend applied for a certificate of a bigamist as it was listed in the GRO index.
There must have been a note on the entry though, ...or somewhere? because GRO said they were unable to supply the certificate.
Luckily we had a fair idea where the family were living at the time and managed to find the entry in parish register.

Gwyn

AAaaah, so if I did happen to find it, it would be a waste of time. Thanks for that, I wont bother looking then!

My GGG Grandmother was a bigamist. Her unlawful 2nd marriage is in the GRO Index.

I will try to order the certificate.

Paul

See the RCE section at: http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?r=554&403
Now this is a bigamous marriage in Scotland, but I would think the basic proceedure was the same. As you can see, the record still physically exists in the register, but there's a correction notice in the margin, and when one checks the RCE, it says the entry is cancelled.

Quite what this implies, I don't know - possibly it means the GRO(S) can't issue a certificate for it - perhaps, notationally, it's no longer in the register.

In Scotland, you can buy uncertified digital copies of the older register pages for a pound a page. Even in Scotland, you can't sneak one through by asking for a certified paper copy of the other marriage on the page - if you ask for a certified copy, the other entries are blocked out.

I'd expect to find the entry in the GRO index (and thence freeBMD), since in most cases, it wouldn't be realized it was bigamy until years after the index had been compiled.
There was another thread on here (or maybe Rec Off) where some GR member had been refused a birth cert - apparently they suspected welfare fraud, and the police had checked the place of supposed birth, and said it had been uninhabited for years (or something along those lines - I don't recall exactly).

My great grandafather was a bigamist but was never caught. He and his first wife both remarried in the same town within a year of each other. All four certs can be ordered so I suppose it'll depend on wether they were found out or not.

My grandparents marriage in 1945 was bigamous - but I've never ordered the cert as I have the original - but the entry is still in the index.

Entries will still be in the indexes as they are a record of what is in the registers.
If a bigamous marriage is discovered, it will be declared void as the conditions for marriage were not satisfied (ie the party(ies)) were not legally free to marry. The entry is then marked to prohibit the issue of further certificates, because, as the marriage was void, it did not exist.

I have a marriage certificate for a bigamist and didn't have any problem obtaining it. There was no record on it that it was a bigamous marriage either.

Sarah

I also have a marriage cert for a bigamous marriage, and again no mention on it that it was bigamous

Tracey