Genealogy Chat

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I've found a marriage on familysearch BENJAMIN THOMPSON Spouse: ANN LONG Marriage: 19 JAN 1838 Ingham, Norfolk, England Batch No.: M013231 Dates: 1801 - 1838 and thought I would get the GRO ref in case I want to get it later. I found, on searching for marriages on Ancestry's Freebmd this: Loddon Norfolk 1838 Jul-Aug-Sep Volume: 13 Page: 275 Elizabeth Blake Samuel Harvey Benjamin Thompson Maria Utting and also THIS 1838 Apr-May-Jun Loddon Norfolk vOL: 13 Page: 291 Elizabeth Blake Susanna Chilvers Samuel Harvey Benjamin Thompson Robert Thurtle Maria Utting Robert Tuthill Whaites Sarah Whaites I know this is probably another Benjamin who has just made things more complicated, but why would he and these other couples be registered twice in consecutive quarters?

And where is Ann Long??? The indexer must have been having a bad day! It is a very early year, perhaps he wasn't sure how to do it!! Isn't there one in JFM at all? Anne

Well, I was being lazy using the Freebmd bit, but have just checked Jan-Mar q of 1838 for Ann Long and the only Ann Long marriage is in Thirsk. So maybe the IGI info is duff - but it is from a parish register which is normally reliable. Help!

If its an extracted entry from the parish register it should have some basis of truth. The main discrepancy I've found is in the year. Its sometimes difficult to see which year it is - specially at the change, and this is January. This is the main error I've found in extracted records. Could it be 1839 instead? Anne

I had thought maybe Jan was wrongly transcribed for Jun but no Ann Long there and no Benjamin in Jan 1839 either. ? I'm beginning to think all those people we accused of living in sin really were married and just missed off the GRO index. nell

Something very strange is going on. Daniel Breese married Hariot Whitby 9 Sep 1838. This is from freebmd: Marriages Jun 1839 BREEZE Daniel Erpingham 13 110A HARDINGHAM William Erpingham 13 110a Turner Mary Erpingham 13 110A Whitby Harriot Erpingham 13 110A All the other marriages for the year are in the correct quarters and the registration district of Tunstead. I am not aware of anything on the IGI for Norfolk that is a pukka extracted source. Everything I have come across has been taken from transcriptions and occasionally even the parish is incorrect. It seems very odd to take marriages to post 30 June 1837, so I do wonder if the entries are actually from the Banns book, rather than a marriage register. (Familysearch has just frozen on me, or I'd check the catalogue.)

Phoenix Thanks for your input. I have found very little Norfolk info on the IGI, but most of what I have found has turned out to be accurate when I checked it at Norfolk RO. I'm not sure yet if these people are even related to me, but I am filling in time waiting for their daughter's marriage cert to see if she married my great-great uncle. Not sure how I'll know its him though, if it just says he's of full age and his dad is called William and is an ag lab!!!! nell

I've just read 'A Comedy of Errors - The marriage records of ENgland and Wales' by Michael Foster. He was allowed access to the indexes and registers at the GRO and found so many examples of mistranscriptions, groom's and father's names transposed, entries sent in the wrong quarter by the vicar, entries sent twice, entries not sent at all etc etc I'm amazed we ever find any marriages.

Judith I've heard about this book - but I wonder how he 'found' marriages if they haven't been sent???!!!!

He did a huge amount of research but some of the ways were comparing local indexes with the GRO searching for IGI extracted entries in the GRO examining the films of the registers sent to the GRO - for these he spotted gaps in the numbering which suggested entries hadn't been submitted, and duplicate entries in following quarters - apparently a lot of vicars had difficulty understanding which months were in which quarters, or just did their returns so late that they got in a muddle. Lots of the errors were at the indexing stage as well - wrong volume numbers, wrong districts, names being transposed, names being missed out etc etc

So instead of getting frustrated that we can't find marriages we should be celebrating the ones we have found?!

Finally around and able to access family search. The records on the IGI are from transcripts, not the registers themselves. The catalogue is not exactly crystal clear, but it looks as if the LDS filmed transcripts in the possession of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society.

Thankyou for that input, Phoenix. It makes perfect sense of my findings years ago, when I first began. Had done an IGI sweep before going to Norfolk, for a week spent combing CRO, central libraries, Kirby House etc. Most of the printed data I came across was the same as I had found on IGI. It was a bit disappointing, but at last I know WHY!!! Jay

Janet, I did exactly the same exercise for my Skillings. I followed up all the leads from the IGI and discovered that they all lead back to transcribed sources. The same is true for the Devon records that I know of and must be true for some other counties where I do not have research interests.