tracing female relatives who marry

[rosieposieanna]

Hi

I need some help with tracing my female relatives who marry. For some reason I have a lot of females in my family tree and I'm having problems trying to work out who they married. It doesn't help that their surname is Smith!

Does anyone have any suggestions to help me without having to request marriage certificates as this is a very expensive way of finding out if it's the right one?

I know their name, age, where they were born and therefore where they may have got married. I know that something has happened ie married or died as I can't find them on the next census searching with their birth name. I've been into Ancestry and FreeBMD but the list seems so long each time that I feel defeated.

Any help would be appreciated. There may not be any quicker way than trawling through each one.

Thanks
RPA

[Galium]

Depending on where they were born, it can be helpful to search censuses with just their forename/s and place and year of  birth, to see if any married women are likely matches  You can then use the husband's name to check for a marriage.

Checking for the whereabouts of any known family members on censuses may find them visiting a married aunt or older sister.  Also marriage records may show up a married sister as a witness.

And public trees on Ancestry can sometimes be helpful in pointing the way to the family a woman has married into - just don't rely too heavily on such information if it isn't backed up with hard evidence.

[rosieposieanna]

Thanks for that.

[soldiermawr]

If you can get a look at Parish Registers for where they were Married that will show the Fathers name and maybe other relatives as witnesses, this can narrow it down a lot. Quite a few Registers are online these days.
Mike

[clayton bradley]

I agree with Mike. Lancashire parish clerk on line are invaluable, for instance. I am currently following Smiths through Clayton le Moors. Even so, multiple Betty Smiths are proving very hard, so I sympathise, claytonbradley

[iolaus]

I'm sure someone on here said you can request a certificate with a provisio, ie you only want it if the father's name is X - and if not they don't charge you for it.  Unfortunately if their father has a common first name there may still be a lot of Smith marriages which aren't 'your' Smiths

[rosieposieanna]

Thanks everyone. I've managed to find them with chat room help.

[iluleah]

It is more likely they married within their own parish, so PRs and even if they married elsewhere they could have had banns read in their own parish.

Check on FreeBMD index using the county and a span of dates ( between census) when you get several possible husbands, look for each one of them in the next census and see if their wife 'fits'

You can also use both surnames only to look for births of children ( depending on the year)

Check other family members in the census, sometimes you will get others in the same household possibly written as a visitor using a completely different name, check them on other census as you may find they are 'in law family' I have found several using this method, two children in my great great grandparents house down as visitors who turned out to be grandchildren ( funny they were Smith too) which lead me to mums married name and the rest of her children

[lizdb]

Another useful source can be Wills. Often someone will name their daughters as beneficiaries in their Will, and if the daughters are already married, then you have their married surname! Found several of mine in that way - wondered happened to the daughters then got the Dads will and they were all listed with their married surnames!