Genealogy Chat

Is it common for births, marriages and deaths to not got to the GRO. I now know where my great grandparents married. As one of their children was born in Scotland and luckily Scottish birth certs give date and place of marriage. I have ordered the birth cert so will have to wait for it to arrive to get the date of marriage. But the marriage definately is not in the GRO index. So has anyone got any advice on this issue?

Was the marriage in Scotland? I don't think you will find a Scottish marriage on the England/Wales index. Kath. x

No the marriage was in Burnley, Lancashire

Some were missed I had one gg grandparents not found at all in the indexing but I did find it in the church records, if you are lucky and know where they were then you might just find it. Others got misspelt, my g grandfather Simpkins was spelt Timpkins, good job I knew g grandmothers surname as I got it via that, then when it was put on Freebmd I found it under Timpkins. Good Luck in your hunt Irene

what if I don't know what church they married in. Would it be likely that the local register office will have details but not the General records office. It I can give an exact date. I was thinking it may of been mispelt but I have searched under both names with no luck. regards, Siobhan

Siobhan Since the original cert was drawn up in the local office and then a copies sent quarterly to the GRO it is more likely the local office would be able to find it. I have a similar problem in that I have a gt grandmother who was widowed in May 1879 and reappeared on the 1881 census with her second husband. No trace of either of them in the GRO indexes. As she was living in Islingon in '79 and in Greenwich in '81 I have the daunting prospect of ploughing through umpteen parish registers to find it. I've done about 4 in Islington and 1 in Greenwich and of course they could have married somewhere else in london in between! I'm just glad her second husband isn't the blood relative - her first husband is my gt grandfather and I have found out as much as I can about him. nell

In my Lancashire-based family I have now found TWO events which do not appear on the GRO but do appear in the local Register Office records. I don't know if this was peculiar to Lancashire, but as I say, I have two events which don't appear on the GRO. Why not phone the Register Office, with the exact date, I find the various Register Offices in Lancashire EXTREMELY helpful. Incidentally, I was told by the GRO, when I queried this, that it is PRACTICALLY UNKNOWN for them not to transcribe a record which they have received from the local Register Offices. Me, I don't know how they can be so sure of what happened 150 years ago!

Marjorie. Thanks that is very useful information. Once I recieve the scottish birth certificate and have the date of the marriage which happened in Burnley Lancashire I will contact the local records office direct. I will keep you updated. fingers crossed they have it. As this will be my biggest brick wall I have got through.