Genealogy Chat

does anyone know if the advert for ancestry.com is true are you able to see marriage certificates on line

You can see some older London marriage certificates but certainly not all others.

Kath. x

ok thanks

London and Liverpool ones you can up until 1921....but not all I think they had to be in a church not register office?

jax

I don't believe it's the certificates that you can see. It's the original parish records.

It is the marriage certificates that can be seen Margee

jax

I believe I'm correct, they are not certificates, they are parish records.

About Liverpool, Lancashire, England, Marriages and Banns, 1813-1921
This collection contains Church of England marriage registers from the Liverpool area of Lancashire County. Liverpool saw its first dock open in 1715, and by 1800, the city boasted five docks, a vital role in world trade, and a population of more than 75,000. The next century would see the population burgeon almost tenfold.

About London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921
Parish records--primarily baptisms, marriages, and burials--are the best source of vital record information before the nineteenth century. Before Civil Registration began in 1837, key events in a person’s life were typically recorded by the Church rather than the State. Starting in the sixteenth century, parish records are some of the longest running records available.

I would say the origanal marriage cert I have belonging to my gt grandparents is identical to the one I viewed on Ancestry. obviously they did not have photo copiers but it is the same

jax

A marriage certificate is just a copy of the parish records so the image you get on Ancestry is exactly the same information you would get from the certificate. This saves you the cost of the certificate if you happen to find the record you want.

Kath. x

Kath, as ever, sums up the situation exactly.

My own marriage certificate was issued by the Minister, and if I remember correctly there were three copies in the book - all looked like a normal certificate but the wording on each was slightly different.

1. The Parish Register itself
2. Certified copy of an entry in the Register Book of Marriages for the Church (i.e. the cert we received)
3.Certified copy which was subsequently sent to the local Register Office

We and our witnesses signed all three copies. In some churches, I gather only the register is signed, the copies are simply handwritten by the minister or his secretary and do not have actual signatures on them.

You are right InspectorGreenPen. When we got married we only signed the register and the others were copied out by the vicar.

Kath. x

Re the marriage records - two are signed by the couple and the witnesses - ie the Parish Register and the certified copy of the entry in the Parish Register ( the cert given to the couple). This is important if you want to find an original of your ancestors' signatures. This often gives an idea of their literacy etc.
The copy sent to the local Register Office has no original signatures. It is purely a handwritten copy by the priest.
The cert you can buy from the GRO is a copy of this latter cert.
If you need the original signatures you have to find who holds the Parish Register (sometimes the church and sometimes the local records office. Now some of these Parish Records are on Ancestry and included in the Ancestry subs charge.

My marraige cert has not got my signature on and that was a register office that I got married in.

My gt grandparents who married in 1882 in London I do have the origanal copy and it is signed by them plus a couple of witnesses who left their mark.

jax