Do Marriage Licenses always carry the father's name?

[M_ONeill]

Apologies for what might be a very basic question, but I'm new to using marriage licenses in family research. Do marriage licenses (and/or associated depositions) always carry the father's name in the case of the bride?

I'm trying to sort out a bit of a complicated tangle in the 18th century part of my tree, and I was wondering if finding documents related to the marriage would help place a concrete name for an ancestor's father.

[medpat]

Certificates are only as good as the information given so sometimes there is accidental and sometimes deliberate wrong information.

With English and Welsh marriage certificates (the only ones I've dealt with) the father and his occupation of both bride and groom should be there.

Some people have stated father is deceased when he isn't or he is and it's not stated. People who are illegitimate sometimes make up a father and others don't know the truth and give the name of the man who they believe is their father.

On the whole I have found people being honest, you just have to be aware that all may not be as it seems. These certs. didn't start until 1837.

Prior to that it's up to finding documentation that shows it but most parish registers just show bride and groom. Looking at witnesses could help you find their family. Being under age may help you as there would have to be consent.

[BumbleB]

As far as I am aware, the only time a father's name would be included in the Bond and Allegation papers would be if the bride was a minor and was marrying with her father's consent. 

[Maiden Stone]

I think the bride's father was named only if he had to give consent because she was under 21. I've lost the link to an archive website which explained with 18thC examples.

[M_ONeill]

Thanks for the replies, all! It sounds like it's definitely worth my time looking - I have two candidates for the father of my 4x great grandmother and both of them have children with almost identical names! I have the marriage certificate of her sister Sarah. If the one man is her father, then she would have been of age, if the other then she wouldn't!

[medpat]

If there are children born after 1837 then you can find the mother's maiden name via GRO. That can be very helpful for marriages just before certs. started.

[Mart 'n' Al]

We have a couple of marriage certificates from early last century on which the father is stated as being deceased but we have serious doubts about whether this is true. What sort of reasons might people have for describing their father as deceased? All I can think of is if they really disliked him and had disowned him, or possibly that the mother had subsequently undergone a bigamous marriage. Any other reasons please?

Martin

[BumbleB]

Just a thought - what makes you think that the marriage was by Licence, rather than by Banns?

18th century marriage entries in parish records vary considerably.  Some are quite specific, and some are merely the date and the two parties concerned.

[M_ONeill]

Just a thought - what makes you think that the marriage was by Licence, rather than by Banns?

I'm fortunate enough to have seen the full marriage record and it's detailed enough to list that it was by license instead of Banns. In fact this marriage, that of my 4x great grandmother and that of a third sister were all by license in Much Wenlock between 1787 and 1797.

What sort of reasons might people have for describing their father as deceased?

Martin, I have a record like that in the Irish side of my tree in the late 1800s - the father is listed as deceased. The fact that we found baptismal records showing said daughter was actually illegitimate makes us think the 'deceased' was just an excuse for why he wasn't around any more by the time of the wedding.