Genealogy Chat

Hi mgnv & Kathryn,

Oh dear, I hope I haven't caused any friction between you girls.

I have never come across any marriages in any other country before, so I suppose I am lucky there. Thanks to you both for giving me your advice and help.

I finally managed to find an email addy, and have today received info from them regarding ordering the marriage cert. It does state on the web that parents names wern't added to marriage certificates untill the beginning of 1915. So the marriage cert won't confirm who his father was, but hopefully it might give me his correct birth date and hopefully one of his siblings was a witness at the marriage.

So keeping my fingers crossed, thanks again to you both for your very informative and helpful comments. It's very much appreciated.

Good luck to you both in your own research,

Regards, Lou

Didn't mean to offend mgnv, I obviously misunderstood what you were getting at. You've helped me enormously here in the past so I hope I haven't upset you?

Kate x

Kathryn - I don't know if your post was directed at me, but I never specified England or Wales, I was just referring to what you might see (or not see) on UK BMDs, and they're not at all uniform. Also, marriage certificates have changed, specifically they changed in Scotland between 1855 and 1856, when former marr details and pob were dropped - they changed again in 1972 when pob was reintroduced. I haven't seen enough Irish m.certs to say whether they've changed or not.

As I said, the UK is about as uniform as the US.

England & Wales marriage certs have never had info about the bride and grooms mothers, and there is in fact uniformity - the rules are laid down very clearly about what info can and cannot be recorded, and this does not vary according to location in England & Wales. Scotland has it's own system. Sometimes these rules change over time so that more information is required (birth and death certs in particular) but marriage certs haven't changed since they were introduced iirc.

Kate x

US BMD's are pretty much like UK BMD's. I.e., there's no uniformity of what info appears, nor when they start. What you get depends on which jurisdiction it was rego'ed under. E.g., abt half my UK marr certs have no info abt the bride or groom's mothers. Same again with d.certs - half have no info abt the deceased parents.

Yes, you have got it wrong - a marr licence there is just like a marr licence in England, except that there it's needed - e.g., no marr by banns without a licence. Since PA doesn't have a centralized registery of marrs, it's quite possible that each county has it's own rules abt what goes on an m.cert, so I've no idea abt your 1916 date.

Well, you could write to the appropriate courthouse - for addy, see:
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/marriage_and_divorce_certificates/14126
[If you phone, there's a 5hr diff, so noon in PA is 5pm in UK]

Hi Mgnv,

I have the 1900 census with him, his wife and children. I've tried to find the actual marriage certificate but am having lots of difficulty.

I'm sure it's the right man. There are so many co-incidences'

Birth was March 1872 But 1900 Census says birth was March but 1873
Emigration was in Dec 1881 but 1900 census states 1883

I have looked at CastleGarden Emigrations and have only found 3 name matches - one is a baby, one an adult and only 1 close age match which I think is mine. The year of emigration was 1881.

I can't access world ancestry to check for other emigration's for same person.

I have done some research and have discovered that it wasn't untill 1915+ that father's name etc were added to marriage certificates. Unless I have got it wrong it also looks as if the USA marriage license is the equivilant to our marriage certificate.

I know I have the right family emigrating as all the children's births are in the correct order but out by 2 years.

Pennsylvania is where he emigrated to and lived. I tried to contact the County Courthouse but all email's bounce back. Also tried the web site you suggest and can't find the marriage there either.

Regards, Lou

Doesn't sound like your guy to me - anyway, you could find the marr to see if it had more info, and find him on the 1900 census at:

https://beta.familysearch.org/s/collection/list#page=1®ion=NORTH_AMERICA

Just out of interest, where was the US govt issuing marr licences for in 1893. I would have thought that almost the whole of the USA was either part of a state or a territory by then.

Hi,
I have a marriage license of what I think is my ancestor's nephew. The problem is marriage license's for USA in1893 for USA didn't contain father's name or occupation. The marriage license does contain a birth date and area.

I have the birth certificate but it's not a complete match. The license has 27 April 1873 South Wales England. The birth certificate has 27 March 1872. The birth cert I have is the correct one, and it was S Wales England. But there are a few other's born in S Wales England with the same christian and surname.

I have the emigration papers but again the problem is the ages for the children arn't correct - they are out by 2 years.

Has anyone got any suggestions where I can go next to find evidence to link him to my ancestor.

Regards, Lou