Marriage Registers Going Electronic from 4th May

[Chris Doran]

I don't remember seeing anything about this before, and maybe it's just our borough, but my church received a letter on 1st April  announcing that the system for registering marriages is changing: the Borough will be legally responsible for registering marriages after the above date, and we will no longer be able to issue certificates. We have to surrender all the stationery and the registers and the relevant people have to do an online training course on the new system.

Fortunately, I photographed the registers some time ago so have only to catch up with the last few pages. Any church archivists out there should be warned that they're about to lose their registers. Hopefully, they'll be put in the borough archives, but they're not very accessible at the best of times. I await with interest how the register office will cope with emergency requests for copy certificates to be faxed to remote parts of the world for some legal purpose a couple of hours hence on a weekend.

I also wonder how the gravitas of the "signing of the register" part of the service will be affected by the happy couple et al crowding around a laptop or phone app rather than an historic tome. The minister, however, is looking forward to no longer being covered in indelible ink.

[Guy Etchells]

I am afraid your minister is going to quickly disillusioned.
You will still use registration ink to complete the marriage schedule.
For more details see.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01qi7/
Cheers
Guy

[AntonyMMM]

The changes to the system, which hasn't fundamentally altered since 1837, were driven by the long overdue promise to add the option of putting a mother's name onto the records and means that registration of marriage will use the computer based process that has been in place for civil partnerships for some years now.

As Guy says - there will still be a schedule document to be signed by the couple, their witnesses and the celebrant, so during the ceremony there can still be that "signing" moment - there will not be any need to use a computer, but they won't get any certificate issued  until the schedule has been deposited at the local register office.

The information from the schedule will be transferred to the current registration computer system, and that will become the primary record of the marriage.

Churches can still  keep a record/register of their own if they wish outside of the legal process.

Registers that are in use will need to be deposited with the Supt Registrar, as they are now when full, and certificates can then be produced from them under the current process.

[Bee]

I don't remember seeing anything about this before, and maybe it's just our borough, but my church received a letter on 1st April  announcing that the system for registering marriages is changing: the .

Am I the only one that read the opening sentence with the date and then thought April Fool ?