Genealogy Chat

Is anyone going to the Essex registry office? I need information please on a marriage certificate for Charles Stevens and Elsie Walker. What other info does one need to search at the office? Any help would be great. Thanks Regards, Gail

I doubt if you - or anyone - would be able to look at the cert without buying it. Reg

If you mean Register Office, Essex is covered by several different registration districts, and so different offices, and you would need to know which church within the district the marriage took place in order to ask for a search - even then you would have to buy the certificate to find out the details. If you mean Records Office then there are hundreds of parish churches in Essex, some of whose registers for that time period will still be in use and so not deposited yet, to say nothing of all the register offices where the marriage could have taken place, in which case the records office will never have the register. A look up on the GRO marriage index would be a much more efficient way to find this marriage

This looks like the marriage reference:- Charles Stevens, spouse Elsie Walker March qtr. 1929, W. Ham, 4a, 372 You will only get the details f rom the certificate by buying it. You can do this online from the GRO. Kath. x

Thanks Kathy that's just what I needed. I thought that a person could go to a records office and look at certs. On other postings people have suggested that to save on buying them. I guess I may have been mistaken.? Regards, Gail

Gail, if you know the church where a marriage is likely to have taken place and it was long enough ago for the registers to have been deposited at the County Records office it IS possible to go and look at the marriage entry and get a photocopy of it. This works if your couple lived in a country parish. The trouble in an urban area like West Ham is there could be hundreds of churches, with separate registers, or the couple may have married at a register office which would not have deposited its registers in the CRO. Or you may have read references to buying a certificate from the register office, this may sometimes be quicker than ordering from the GRO, also cheaper in that if they can't find the one you want they refund all your money rather than just part. But some busy offices won't supply certs for family history, and some don't have an index and won't search for marriages because of the number of registers involved..

Thanks Judith. I will try to find out what church they were maiied in. I can't get to any of thr CORs as I am in Canada so I may have to order it after all.