Genealogy Chat

Just received 2 m certs from GRO - both photocopies of originals. They are for my wife's g'father who married in 1911 & 1916 without divorce/death, his condition is given as bachelor on both. I'm convinced it's the same man but both certs were written by the clerk and therefore there are no 'original' signatures to compare. On earlier & later m certs including my own I had to sign - was the writing of signatures dropped at that time?
Also the second cert. is not endorsed to show that this was not in fact legal and must have been known at the time of divorce (1922-4) as the bigamy was the grounds - any thoughts or tips? John Jackson

Hi John

Sorry, following you around the boards...lol

What you actually get when you receive a copy certificate from the GRO is a copy of a copy...

If you need to see the original and compare signatures......well...

If they got married in a church and if those parish records have been deposited in the local archive you can see them..in fact if you have exact dates I am sure the archives would post out copies of the original for a minimal fee. They have usually been microfilmed or fiched.

If the records have not been deposited then they will still be in the hands of the church and you would need to contact the Vicar to see what his policy was. (There is often a charge)

Gail.

Ps He may have pretended he could not write...

In England, what you get is a certified copy of the register. You can get this in Scotland, but for older events you can also purchase (for a much cheaper price) an image of the page in the register.

You can see an example of the register entries for a bigamous marriage if you go to http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/welcome.aspx and click on the "What's In The Database" tab, "Record Types & Examples", "SR Marriages".
In the body, they say:
"The following is an example of an RCE relating to a bigamous marriage:"
followed by two links:
Marriage entry showing RCE reference in left margin
RCE

In this example, there's a two year gap between the bigamist's conviction, and the entry in the Register of Corrected Entries, and the annotation on the original entry. It's not clear to me who triggered this change. The RCE entry is made by the direction of the register general, but it's not clear if this was an automatic process, or if the 2nd "wife" had to ask for it. Also, looking at the "signatures" of the bride, groom and witnesses of both marriages on the original entry's page, it's clear 7 signatures are in the same hand (the asst. registrar's) - the X could be anyone's.
This image is from the GRO(S), but I think they use a copy prepared by the Local RO.
For births and deaths, these images contain the original signatures of the informant who came to the register. (Since Scotland started statutory BMDs 17.5 y later than England, I think they skipped the early stage of the register going around to register events, but I don't know).
For marriages, I think the proceedure was that each church in the Registration District sent it's marriage register into the LRO, who compiled a register that was sent to the GRO / GRO(S). I think the church usually made a copy of it's register, and I don't know if they sent their originl or their copy to the LRO. From the bigamous example, we can see that the GRO(S) is using a register wherein the various chuches in the RD have been merged into one marriage register for the RD.

Just received a helpful & informative communication from 'Marriage & Civil Partnership Branch' of ONS via GRO who state as above ref 'copying' original so matching of signatures not possible.
More interestingly, once submitted there is 'no provision for an entry to be annotated at a later stage'. In my case when the illegality was demonstrated - hence their records do not show whether or not our certificates are legal or not.

Issue closed!! Thanks & Merry Christmas - incidently their e-mail response was sent just after midnight today Chrismas Eve!!

For church weddings TWO registers are signed. One is sent to the district registrar and one is held by the church / records office.

For civil marriages there is one original held by the district registrar.

Many local offices supply copies of these originals some don't have the facility and some will if asked.

GRO don't hold originals.

Bob