As a general rule how does one track down a marriage if not in the last area known?
All assistance greatly appreciated.David
It would really have depended on how common the names were. If your ancestor was called Augustus Snafflebottom, then chances are there would have been very few people with the same name, so you could use sources such as freebmd or familysearch to do a general search for a marriage of someone with that name.
With more common names it is a little more challenging. Prior to the GRO handily sorting their birth index out to include maiden names, you might have had to order a birth cert (always good practice anyway just to double check you have the right person etc) which would give the MMN. Otherwise, as a general rule one would find the couple on all censuses available. If one was lucky, you might well have found a census with a relative of the wife on it - you might then know the wife's maiden name. This would mean that you could repeat the process of using freebmd and familysearch to do general search for the marriage but with two names instead of just one (helpful for more common names, i.e. to search for marriage of Richard Burton would give you quite a few hits. To search for a marriage of Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor would narrow it down).
Hope that makes sense!
