Genealogy Chat

Hi all this is probably a really silly question.....How would I find a marriage date? I only know the grooms full name and the first name of the bride???????????? Help pleeeeeeeeeeeeease Vix

The way I always do it is look at when the first child was born and investigate marriages upto about 5 years earlier, using sites like free bmd or ancestry. It turns up trumps most of the time, but not always if the names are really common. You can always get their childrens birth certificates to tell you the mothers full maiden name if it was after 1837 (and registered!) Good luck, Sarah

Hello Firstly - have you looked at the Resources page on this site? It gives lots of useful info & links. Secondly - UKBMD,org,uk (with dots instead of commas) is a very well-organised site of geneaology links. Of these, FreeBMD is probably the one you need. It isn't complete yet but has a lot of searchable info up and running. In particular, you can seach with the info you have mentioned. You will have to do a period at a time, especially if you have no idea of place. If you can narrow down the likely places for the marriage to have been registered then your search will be faster - or you can get away with searching longer periods at once. This will tell you only the date the marriage was registered*, to the nearest quarter-year. The GRO records are transcribed quarterly from the local records. Some local areas also have freely searchable indexes (see UKBMD, the local BMD page). These sometimes have records - and more accurately - that the GRO hasn't got because of human fallibility in transcription. *Especially in the case of birth registration, this arrangement is highly vulnerable to delay. hope that helps Christine

Thank you all so much your help is greatly appreciated!! Vix