Birth Certificate/Marriage

[ginger58]

I am researching a marriage about 1900+ would you have to produce a birth certificate to verify your name prior to the marriage.  Birth surname is different to 1901 census.   

[Alan b]

You could try the freeBMD site (http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl), find the marriage (by entering the grooms name and the females first name) and it might give you the pre-marriage name if you can find them.

[aghadowey]

As far as I know you did not have to produce a birth certificate to verify your name and it is not uncommon to find differences between birth/baptism and marriage names.

[stanmapstone]

The name on the marriage certificate is that by which the person was known at the time, there was no requirement to prove either name or age. Under English common law, a person may take a new surname, perfectly legally, without drawing up any formal record, provided that such action is not undertaken for the purpose of fraud of avoidance of obligation, etc. So for people over over 16 years of age in England there is only one way to legally change your name and that is by using a new name.

Stan