Associating a marriage with a date of birth

[selwonk11]

First of, apologies if this topic has been covered previously. This forum is HUGE and it's a bit difficult trying to find specifics.

Hopefully an easy question...

I am trying to trace my birth mother. I have her birth certificate and, therefore, her date of birth. I have stumbled across the FeeBMD site:

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/

My first port of call was to try to see if she had married. Using the site above I can see all the recorded marriages matching her name, but is there any way to determine from the marriage records what the date of birth of the spouse was?

I have searched in Ancestry using all the surnames I've found against my mother's birth year, but not come up with anything. I'd be grateful for any pointers.

Thanks in advance.

MK

[groom]

Welcome to Rootschat

My first port of call was to try to see if she had married. Using the site above I can see all the recorded marriages matching her name, but is there any way to determine from the marriage records what the date of birth of the spouse was?

Unfortunately the answer is no. All you can see there are names and places of marriage, to see more you would need to buy the certificate and even then it might not give an exact age.

Please don't mention any names, but is your mother still likely to be alive? If so, the Salvation Army might be able to help you trace her  http://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/FamilyTracing  However, if you were adopted I'm not sure if they would then help.

[selwonk11]

Hi.

Thanks for the quick reply!

I would quite happily buy all the marriage certificates if necessary, but it could be quite expensive for what would be a fishing exercise.

Yes; my mother is likely to be alive. She would have turned 60 this year. The adoption society who handled my case do offer a tracing service like The Salvation Army, but as I know it costs them a lot more than the associated fee, I thought I would try to eliminate all obvious possibilities first.

Thanks again. I will have to rethink the first steps.

[Rosinish]

Hi Sel,

Another thought............

A good idea may be to look at Electoral Rolls in the area where you were born around that time with her surname as she may have been living with her parents & possibly you were named after one of her parents 

If she had a middle name it would narrow things down too 

Annie

[bibliotaphist]

Does the birth certificate that you hold give your mother's father's name?

If so I wonder if you could narrow down the number of possible marriages by placing a number of 'conditional' orders with the GRO as explained on the FreeBMD site:

From: http://www.freebmd.org.uk/Certificates.html

"If you are not certain that you have found the correct entry in the index you can make an application to the GRO using their non-quoted service, i.e. by specifying that you do not have the GRO reference number (for an online application check No for "Is the GRO Index Reference Number known?"). This service is available online, by telephone or post and allows you to provide information that will be checked against the entry (for instance mother's forename - EDIT: or father's name?). The certificate will only be issued if the details agree with the information you have provided, If the details do not agree you will be issued with a full refund..."

(Disclaimer: I've never done this so I don't know for certain that it would work or if there are limits on the number of these sorts of requests that you can put in. For all I know, the GRO's system may have changed since this was written)

[selwonk11]

Hi Sel,

Another thought............

A good idea may be to look at Electoral Rolls in the area where you were born around that time with her surname as she may have been living with her parents & possibly you were named after one of her parents 

If she had a middle name it would narrow things down too 

Annie

Thanks Annie.

I have quite a lot of information. I've been really lucky; my adoption file is pretty comprehensive. For example:

-- I know my "real" name.
-- I have my grandparent's names.
-- I have my mother's middle name.
-- I have my father's name although I have been warned it's not uncommon for this not to be correct.

I've used her middle name/initial on the FreeBMD site and managed to get a fairly small number of matches. Of course, I have no idea if she ever married, so even though I've narrowed it down, none of them may be her.

Is the only way to gain access to the marriage certificate by ordering them from the GRO? Does the parish have a copy, for example, and would this be available to the public?

[selwonk11]

Does the birth certificate that you hold give your mother's father's name?

If so I wonder if you could narrow down the number of possible marriages by placing a number of 'conditional' orders with the GRO as explained on the FreeBMD site:

From: http://www.freebmd.org.uk/Certificates.html

"If you are not certain that you have found the correct entry in the index you can make an application to the GRO using their non-quoted service, i.e. by specifying that you do not have the GRO reference number (for an online application check No for "Is the GRO Index Reference Number known?"). This service is available online, by telephone or post and allows you to provide information that will be checked against the entry (for instance mother's forename - EDIT: or father's name?). The certificate will only be issued if the details agree with the information you have provided, If the details do not agree you will be issued with a full refund..."

(Disclaimer: I've never done this so I don't know for certain that it would work or if there are limits on the number of these sorts of requests that you can put in. For all I know, the GRO's system may have changed since this was written)

That's very interesting! I'll get my file out tonight and start summarising what I know. If what you have described above is still the case, that would definitely be worth a go!

Thanks very much!

[Liz_in_Sussex]

(Disclaimer: I've never done this so I don't know for certain that it would work or if there are limits on the number of these sorts of requests that you can put in. For all I know, the GRO's system may have changed since this was written)

Hi,

I used this service recently when I was looking for my Grandmother's brothers - with less to go on than you appear to have - it took a lot of methodical working through the various options but eventually I struck gold - against seemingly impossible odds (their names: Fred and John Brown, born in London!).  Mostly I filled in the online form, paid, and then would get an email back telling me my money had been refunded; on one occasion I phoned them and they were very helpful.  As long as you are careful about what information you fill in the system works well.

Good luck!

Liz

[selwonk11]

Thanks Liz.

Definitely worth a go in that case! I'll narrow it down as much as possible and then start looking at the list.

Thanks folks. I will keep you posted!