Genealogy Chat

How many Researchers have ancestors, "Married by Licence."
What becomes of that Licence ?...........who retains it?
Is there a Register of Licences and who retains them. If anyone has such a Licence, I'd appreciate knowing what detail is entered.

There are some details here about obtaining copies of some London marriage Licences:-

http://www.britishorigins.com/help/aboutbo-mla.aspx

Kath. x

The Essex Record Office has some relevant to Essex but they do say not many have survived.

Iv'e copied this from the website mentioned above (talking about Marriage Licence Allegations):-

"The main use of the indexes will be to refer people to the appropriate Allegation. The general wording of the Allegations changed remarkably little over the roughly 150 year period covered by these new indexes, and is identical in both the Vicar-General and Faculty Office documents. As a consequence the amount of genealogical information contained in the Allegations is virtually the same whatever the date of the document. Every Allegation gives the full names of both parties, their parish of residence, their current marital status - eg spinster, widower - and the names of the church or churches where the marriage may take place. Additionally the age of both parties is usually given, although it is often omitted in the case of widowers and widows, and is frequently in the rather unhelpful form of "21 years and above". For minors the age is normally given in full. Rank - eg Esquire, Baronet - is usually shown where appropriate, but trade or profession is seldom given. Except for minors, parentage is not given.

In the case of a minor, a parent or guardian was required to attend the licensing office, and make a sworn statement that they were consenting to the marriage. This statement usually contained a lot of additional information, since it gave the name of the parent or guardian, his or her relationship to the minor, their place of residence, and quite frequently their trade or profession. This statement is normally on the same sheet as the Allegation itself"

Kath. x

It's surprising that such an important document has not been retained/saved.
Maybe it's just me that sees too much significance in them.

Helpful as ever Kathleen, that's useful reading, thank you.

I was married by special licence as neither my husband-to-be or myself lived in the parish where we wanted to marry.
As far as I remember (long time ago!) the only difference it made was to do with the banns - normally read in the parishes where the couple live. My marriage certificate says "married by licence" rather than "married by banns."
I have the licence in the loft somewhere - it is very pretty, with the Archbishops seal on it. But as far as I remember it doesn't have much detail on it - they are all on my marriage certificate, as normal.