Genealogy Chat

This may seem a really stupid question, but can a couple still be married even though the marriage was not registered. If it is possible would I be able to find anything on the marriage elsewhere? Help please Jan

Hi, Try the local register office or parish records. Not all marriages made it on to the national index. Gwynne

Thanks alot Jan

Janet it has been estimated that up to 50,000 marriages (yes I said fifty thousand!) could be missing from the registers between 1837 and 1900. Some never arrived from the clergy to the local registers and some of these did not get from there onto the GRO. So marriages may only exist on church records. Bob

And could it be possible that the couple married outside the UK and so never got registered here? Must have happened a lot. It is an issue close to my heart as I went to Kenya to marry in 1994, having been told that the marriage details would be confirmed to UK authorities and so would feature in the overseas marriage index at GRO. Ten years plus on, I have now found out that this was not the case and am still trying to find a way to get the marriage noted here for the sake of my descendants. Not to mention the problems I will have if my house goes up in flames and takes my wedding cert with it!!!! In the twentieth century, marriages in exotic places are increasingly common - I wonder how much difficulty this will cause family history researchers in a few hundred years.