Marriage Certificates

[craggus]

I have obtained a couple of marriage certificates recently where the fathers name and profession are listed even though I am pretty sure that they were dead at the time of the wedding. Is this fairly common?

Craig 

[madbadrob]

Craig,

YES very common and a lot of the time deceased was missing.  I do wonder how many registrars just said whats ya dad called and whats he do for a living. The groom and bride saying joe and hes a miner dont suppose registrar then said is he dead lol

[craggus]

Thanks!

I had been hoping to use wedding certificates in an attempt to help me 'kill off' some relatives (rather than looking for the first census they did NOT appear in and then searching the previous TEN years death indexes) but it appears it might not be a reliable guide as to whether they were alive. (The fathers I mean... I'm assuming the bride and groom are always alive at the time of the wedding, LOL!!)

Craig 

[Darcy]

Hi Craig

I'm not so sure about the bride and groom being alive at the wedding! Fitty has a post somewhere saying she was going to check if her couple had died on their honeymoon!

I have a marriage certificate for my great grandmother giving her father as a labourer when I know he was a butcher and died 2 months before she was born

I think, as Rob has said, the information on the certificate depended on what questions they were asked at the time - and I don't think too much attention was paid to the answers. Great grandma was just turned sixteen at the time of her marriage but she is recorded on the certificate as 'of full age'

Darcy

[Aussie possum]

"I'm assuming the bride and groom are always alive at the time of the wedding"..........well, sometimes its only just.  I have discovered that my grandfather's uncle 's marriage is registered in the Sept qtr of 1893, his death also listed in the Sept qtr of 1893 (actually it looks funny on the free bmd site as deaths are listed before marriages).  Their daughter's birth was registered in June qtr of 1894, and in June 1899 the widow married his brother!   Don't you just adore genealogy!

[madbadrob]

Hi Craig



I think, as Rob has said, the information on the certificate depended on what questions they were asked at the time - and I don't think too much attention was paid to the answers. Great grandma was just turned sixteen at the time of her marriage but she is recorded on the certificate as 'of full age'

Darcy

Darcy, I have seen similar to that many times and they usually married outside there normal parish as thhey could lie to the vicar there   I came to the conclusion about 18 months ago that marriage certs couldn't be 100% trusted but as with other sources they do give you something to work with. 

rob

[Kimi]

I too have a  few marriage certs with wrong information.  Especially the information about Fathers.  I have a couple with the completely wrong addresses on them  and a death cert where a daughter in law was named as the widow of the  deceased - I've drawn the conclusion that my family were all liars .   Either that or the Registrars were drunk!

Kimi

[Annahannah]

Just found this,

I have 2 interesting certs, both from the same family.

On his marriage cert, my grandfather listed his father as deceased. Several years later he visited the family.

My G-grandmother was listed as a spinster on her marriage cert, but brought 5 children to the marriage, with a different surname.

Anna