Genealogy Chat

I have just seen a reply to someone on how best to use 1837 to search for a marriage. They suggest using more unusual surname first and then checking on the index if it is correct. I have missed this index bit. Would be grateful if someone can explain how to use it, in simple terms please!! Many thanks Jeanie

Assuming you're acquainted with 1837Online in general terms? If you're looking for a groom with a common name (William Smith, say) then you might get a whole page of William Smiths and maybe more, so you might be looking at more than one page each quarter, even with the updated index (where you can search by much more than just the first three letters of the surname). With an unusual name, you may even be lucky enough to be able to rule out a quarter's pages if the target name would have fallen between the last of one page and the first of the next. (If it's between the first & last of a page, you won't know, without looking - and paying - for the page, whether or not there are any registrations for the target name.) Once you've found a possible result for the unusual name, you go back to that particular quarter for the common name and see if there's a match for the reference (on the basis that the bride & groom will have the same registration reference for their joint certificate). Does that make sense? Once you get to about 1912 you gat the partner's surname as part of the index. good hunting Christine

well explained christine i was going to have a go but didnt know where to start lol but you put just what i was thinking :) tracy

Thanks for your vote of confidence, Tracy. It's hard to gauge how to word instructions. The "proof of the pudding" will be if Jeanie can use it to achieve what she's after when she doesn't already know what to do. Here's hoping Christine

Thankyou for such a clear explanation Christine. I have actually done that process but when I saw other post, mistakenly thought that having found a George Homer, Bilston Stafford. I could hit a tab called index and up would pop his wife. I live in a fantasy world! This marriage was around 1859. Unfortunatly none of them on ancestry seem to match with the Ann Taylor, Sedgley Stafford, he married. Taylor seems to come just behind Smith for being a common surname!! Ann may be her middle name just to add to confusion! Thanks for all the replies.

You aren't entirely in a fantasy world - it (sort of) works that way on FreeBMD! If the marriage has been transcribed onto FreeBMD, you can search for one name, then when it brings the records up, click on the page number & it will show the others on that page. In fact, if you know both names, you can put them both into the search & it will only bring that record up (unless one of them has been mis-transcribed in any way). I did that & discovered that my great-great-grandparents had married each other twice! Never did figure out why! Carole

A possiblity, could Ann have been married before, you will then not get her maiden name. Irene

Hi Jeanie I have exactly the same problem in Sedgley but about 15/20 years earlier. I have 3 or 4 Joseph Hobson (Hopson) marrying Nancy Parker, but none fit! Are yours from one of the nine villages of Sedgley? Happy hunting Amanda

Mary Ann Homer - according to birth cert. Batmans Hill Sedgley. According to census Bradley, Staff.!! I belive Batmans Hill was in Bradley, Bilston Staff. They dont make it easy for you!