Genealogy Chat

Cracking the code of the GRO Marriage Index.

Enables you to interpret the Marriage Index created by the General Register Office for England and Wales. By using it you can determine where your ancestors were married - not just which Registration District, but which church!


http://www.marriage-locator.co.uk/

Just tried it gt grandparents got the correct church... But that one was on the London marriages on ancestry

So tried it on gt gt grandparents in 1853 who married In Chesterton (Cambridge)

Got

Sorry we cannot locate a church for this marriage the entry is located between entries for Gt Shelford Chesterton and Cambridge all saints :-(

So I wonder where they married then?....they lived in Cottenham so was expecting the village church to be mentioned..... Will try some others see what I get

I also tried it, for my grandparents, and got ...................



Sorry, we cannot locate the church for this marriage. The entry is located between entries for Shaw Holy Trinity and Werneth St Thomas, both in RD Oldham.




they actually married at St Thomas, Werneth :-)



I got the same response for my great grandparents ...................


Sorry, we cannot locate the church for this marriage. The entry is located between entries for Chadderton Christ Church and Chadderton St Matthew, both in RD Oldham.



and also for ancestors who married in a small village with only one church in 1844 ...........



Sorry, we cannot locate the church for this marriage. The entry is located between entries for Gt Missenden (RD: Amersham) and Langley Marish St Mary the Virgin (RD: Eton).



sooooooooooooooooooooooooo


how useful will it be????

oh dear



I think I will give up on it ............................


my parents marriage ............... I do have the certificate, and have seen the record in the Parish Register, as well as it being on freebmd


but the Marriage Locator tells me .....................


Sorry about this but we don't have any records for this marriage.



:-S :-S :-S

Actually, after my search for page 900,
the site would be more helpful if they reported:
Sorry, we cannot locate the church for this marriage. The entry is located between entries for Shaw Holy Trinity (p 850) and Werneth St Thomas (p 910), both in RD Oldham.
At least, that way I could search for p 849, and it would name a church on say, p 825 which I would *know* was not the church I needed, (assuming p 825 wasn't Shaw Holy Trinity).

Actually, in the case of Cambridgeshire & Lancashire, there are local indexes available which name the church - see:
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/local_bmd

E.g.,
Lancashire Marriage indexes for the years: 1887
Surname Forename(s) Surname Forename(s) Church / Register Office Registers At Reference
SEDDON James PRICE Kate Werneth, St. Thomas Oldham CE247/3/284

Cambridge is less helpful
MARRIAGE/CIVIL P M/CP Name(s)- recorded with entry Year
331/CE110/01/126 M FLACK John LAWRENCE Mary LAURENCE Mary HART Mary 1888 [Add to Basket]
331/CE040/02/436 M FLACK John RAYMENT Agnes BENDALL Agnes 1887 [Add to Basket]
331/CE051/01/292 M FLACK John CASBOLT Alice 1886
[I presume 331 is the code for Cambridge RD, & CE110, CE040, CE051 are 3 churches therein, but unfortunately there's no decoder key]

jax, Cottenham Parish cd, 15 Marriages 1853, if you need anything, will take a look round...(could be on the Cambridgeshire Marriage Index cd)

Chris :)

Marriage Locator Search Results

GRO Index: 1883 quarter 3, volume 11A, page 512:

Sorry, we cannot locate the church for this marriage. The entry is located between entries for Pillgwilly Holy Trinity (RD: Newport) and Michaelstone Super Avon (RD: Neath).

Thank you Mr Magoo, I was looking for this site only a couple of weeks ago. I knew there was an old thread about it but couldn't find that either.

As the site says, it works best for East London parishes, the rest of the country is still very patchy.

Edit: I've found the old thread now:
http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/genealogy_chat/thread/1279749
It seemed to produce better results then.

As ken has said ok for East London marriages as that's where a lot of mine married tried an Essex one
GRO Index: 1863 quarter 2, volume 4a, page 489:

Sorry, we cannot locate the church for this marriage. The entry is located between entries for Rayne All Saints (RD: Braintree) and Takeley Holy Trinity (RD: Dunmow).

The Cambridge one Chris was John Bishop and Elizabeth Smith.... If you can see who her father is that would be great

Solved a puzzle for one of mine.

James Lewis 1853 Q4 Shoreditch 1c 403....Would expect the marriage to be on Ancestry in the LMA collection but not found.

Tried the locator...
This marriage was at Hoxton St John the Baptist (RD: Shoreditch)

So back to Ancestry and viewed the images for the church and found it! One of a few pages for the Church not indexed by Ancestry.

Chris

jax, can't see a thing on cd's!!...not on below either (would be interesting that Cert.)

https://www.camdex.org.uk/search.cfm

Strange eh?...

Chris :)

mgnv ....................


Thanks for your attempt .........


............ I was using marriages for which I had all the details, either in the form of the actual certificate or having seen the Parish Register on line

I wanted to see what Marriage Locator would do before trying it on an "unknown"



Lancashire opc and bmd are both well-used sites by me :-)

That's a shame Chris

Not really bothered with her side being a Smith..it was bad enough with my two lines of Taylors :-D

I suppose I could order the cert...be just my luck it will say unknown for father

Jax this a very good site for Takeley.

http://www.tlhs.org.uk/

This one is handy too.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~boydsindex/Boydsindex.htm

If you PM me the details of this 1863 quarter 2, volume 4a, page 489:
I will see what I can find at the weekend.

Thanks Mr Magoo

I believe it was Takeley church.... I have a lot on this side which I got from seax ....wonder why I didn't take a copy of that marriage? I have the baptisms of them and their children

Having a SEAX subscription with a few hours left, I thought I would try to tie up the page numbers with parish churches for Dunmow district in Q2 1863. I hoped to be able to see some sort of pattern.

I went through all the parishes listed on the freebmd/genuki list for Dunmow. Most did not have an entry for that quarter and some (including White Roding and Barnston) don't have records for the post 1837 period.

The page numbers I did find with marriages were as follows:
473 Great Bardfield
477 Bardfield Saling
479 Great Dunmow
481 High Easter
482 High Easter
483 Great Easton
485 Little Easton
487 Felsted
491 Leaden Roding
493 Stebbing
494 Stebbing
495 Takeley
497 Thaxted
498 Thaxted

I presume the missing ones are Register Office or non CofE. The parishes with no on-line records on SEAX may account for a couple of the missing ones.

As for a pattern, the subdistricts might be in alphabetical order within subdistricts if, for example Great Easton is written as Easton Great.

jax, can't understand it, lol.

Cottenham Baptism of John (1833, born 1832) Marriage of his Parents 1832 (looking round last night, noticed both also on FreeREG) can see an unmarried Elizabeth 1851 Cottenham, with Parents, John, Mary, but no Baptism...

Give me a shout, if you get that Cert.!.

Chris :)

Yes Chris I have those as her parents in 1841 & 1851, which look the most likely. There is a tree on ancestry that says her parents were Thomas and Elizabeth but I think that must be a guess as it doesn't look like he has the marriage cert either

(with caution on that jax!)

Cambridgeshire Baptisms Index 1801-1837

SMITH Elizabeth H.
Year 1833 Relationship of Thomas & Elizabeth
Place Chesterton

http://www.cfhs.org.uk/searchsd.cfm

(looking at 1841, the Tree owner has above, siblings on there too, looks also to have wrong Marriage for John Bishop Senior!)


Checked on Cambridgeshie Baptism Index cd

St. Andrew. Chesterton

1833 Apr 21 Smith Elizabeth Harding of Thomas & Elizabeth otp



Marriages Sep 1860 (>99%)
-------------------------------------------------------------
Allan Joseph Liverpool 8B 183
Smith Elizabeth Harding Liverpool 8b 183


1871 (Ancestry)
Elizabeth H Allan
Age: 38
Estimated birth year: abt 1833
Relation: Wife
Spouse's Name: Joseph Allan
Gender: Female
Where born: Cambridge, Cheshire, England (says Chesterton)

Chris :)

edits (apologies to Mr M, not hijacking your 'Thread', lol)

So it looks like her parents were John and Mary... Thanks Chris


This looks to be their marriage
Name: John Smith
Gender: Male
Spouse's Name: Mary Nottage
Marriage Date: 3 Apr 1832
Marriage Place: Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, England