marriage search problems

[kat44]

Does anyone have any tips on how best to find a marriage when you have no idea of the year please? |help|

I have tried searching on both spouses names but sometimes you find a huge list of possibilities but not knowing the year they married, makes it so hard to narrow down the right person :confused:

I am trying to find four marriages at the moment:

Annie May Richards (although may be under adoptive name of Smart) b.1908 d.1986
married
David Rees Mazey b.1905 d.1989
I think this must be before 1930 (when their first child was born) and I'm pretty sure would have been in Wales, possibly Merthyr Tydfil. I have found two possibilities on David Mazey but the dates and names don't match.

Elizabeth Walker b.1922 (poss end 1921) d.1951
married
James Henry Coles (could be Cole) b.1922/3 d.1957
This is definitely approx 1946 but again can't find a record. It may have happened in Scotland but I'm not sure - couldn't find the record on ScotlandsPeople, nor Ancestry.

Mary Ann Walls b.1877 (approx) d.1939
married
John Walker (don't know dates but he died between 1939 and 1951)
I'm pretty sure this is definitely in Scotland as they lived in West Lothian and one child was born in 1922 so I think it would be before then.

James Alexander Ramsey b.1891 d.1973
married
Isobel Margaretta Arnold b.1907 d.1984
I am pretty sure this marriage happened in Ireland and probably before 1931

I would be really grateful if anyone had any tips on how best to find these marriages or could even provide me with some answers please! Really struggling now.

Thank you
Kat

[michaelpipe]

Annie M Smart & David R Mazey
Dec Qtr 1928 Mertyhr T, Vol 11a, Page 1424

Michael

[kat44]

|hug|Thank you Michael, how on earth did you find that so quick when I've been searching for days??!!

Is there one place in particular you go to look for this sort of information?

I looked on Ancestry and FreeBMD and both said no matches.

Having just searched on Ancestry again through the indexes with the year, it came up straight away! Would there be a reason why doing a normal search on someone's name and birth/death dates wouldn't bring up the marriage entry?

Thank you for your help

[MarkJ]

Were you using the Free BMD lists at Ancestry too?
Unless you have a subscription to a pay site which has the full lists, you will find that the free ones only go up to around 1900 or so currently.
For later dates, it is a case of using the pay sites - although your local library *may* have a subscription to them, as may your local FHS headquarters.

Mark

[Procat]

Free BMD has made some amazing progress in the last couple of months and now has marriages covered almost entirely up until 1917 and a pretty good coverage for a few years up to 1928.

They have a progress page here (http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/progressM.shtml).

[MarkJ]

They have Doug - I gave 1900 as a rough date. Prior to that, most records are now online, but after that, it seems to become more patchy as time goes forward. In some areas, the records are marching forward at a great pace, others are still a little behind.
My uncle - born in 1928 here in (actually Sunny for once) Cornwall shows on the births now - which I discovered by accident the other day!

Kats enquiries are likely to not be online in the Free ones for a little while I suspect - e.g a marriage around 1946...

I am a huge fan of the FreeBMD project and the folks doing the transcribing are working really hard voluntarily to help us all.

Mark

[JustJean]

If Mary Ann Walls and John Walker had children in Scotland as you indicated then the BC of the children will include the parents date and place of marriage. Mind you this info isn't always accurate or even true....but it's surely worth consideration!

Have you obtained the BC yet of the 1922 birth? btw....it looks like they may have had a daughter in 1914 born Rose Ann. She married in Armadale and died in 1982. This looks like her indexed birth entry but since it's in the modern records you'd have to pay a visit to NRH or Park Circus to get a transcript or alternatively order the extract from GROS

1914 WALKER ROSE ANN F BATHGATE /WEST LOTHIAN 662/01 0290

Best wishes
Jean

[kat44]

Hi

I have actually become a member of Ancestry and used whatever results they gave me! I don't think it was just the FreeBMD search.
It's just strange that if I search through the list of indexes for the year 1928, I found it straightaway but searching without a year didn't bring it up as a possibility.

Scotlandspeople only go up to 1932 on the marriages (which doesn't help!!)

Jean - thank you so much. We knew Elizabeth Walker had a sister but couldn't find a record of name or birth. We haven't got Elizabeth's birth certificate yet as couldn't narrow it down for which quarter and have ran out of credit for searching (until payday!). How did you manage to find that out?
You wouldn't happen to know Rose's married name and when she married please? Any tips on how to search her family and where they lived etc?

Forgive my ignorance but I am relatively new to researching my family and I don't know everywhere to look. Can anyone let me know their best places to search and where they've had more success or their methods of research please? (or is there another thread regarding this I can read please?)

Also - is there a way of finding out the names of children born to two parents if you only know the parents names and dates?

Apologies for the number of questions but I get so excited at each little new piece of information, I just want to find out more :D

Thank you all for your help

[Peter Goodey]

For FreeBMD searches you are almost always better off using
http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/
rather than A*y, which has poorer search facililities and where the database is always out-of-date.

[michaelpipe]

|hug|Thank you Michael, how on earth did you find that so quick when I've been searching for days??!!

Is there one place in particular you go to look for this sort of information?

I looked on Ancestry and FreeBMD and both said no matches.

Having just searched on Ancestry again through the indexes with the year, it came up straight away! Would there be a reason why doing a normal search on someone's name and birth/death dates wouldn't bring up the marriage entry?

Thank you for your help


I have in the past transcribed large chunks of the GRO Index from findmypast for my own use - just happened to have that page.

Michael

[kat44]

Wow! Well, thank you very much :)

[JustJean]

Hi

I have actually become a member of Ancestry and used whatever results they gave me! I don't think it was just the FreeBMD search.
It's just strange that if I search through the list of indexes for the year 1928, I found it straightaway but searching without a year didn't bring it up as a possibility.

Scotlandspeople only go up to 1932 on the marriages (which doesn't help!!)

Jean - thank you so much. We knew Elizabeth Walker had a sister but couldn't find a record of name or birth. We haven't got Elizabeth's birth certificate yet as couldn't narrow it down for which quarter and have ran out of credit for searching (until payday!). How did you manage to find that out?
You wouldn't happen to know Rose's married name and when she married please? Any tips on how to search her family and where they lived etc?
Forgive my ignorance but I am relatively new to researching my family and I don't know everywhere to look. Can anyone let me know their best places to search and where they've had more success or their methods of research please? (or is there another thread regarding this I can read please?)

Also - is there a way of finding out the names of children born to two parents if you only know the parents names and dates?

Apologies for the number of questions but I get so excited at each little new piece of information, I just want to find out more :D

Thank you all for your help

Hi Kat

Well actually I'm not 100 percent certain this Rose Ann is a sister....but I'm willing to bet on it. I ran a search on scotlandspeople in the modern indexes for deaths and only used a surname and a mothers maiden name and left all else blank...surname of course was WALKER and mothers mn was WALLS. There were actually two results.....one was Rose Ann and the other was a Bessie like so.....

2001 WALKER, BESSIE (mothers mn)WALLS (other surname)STIRLING GLENROTHES /FIFE 420/00 0338
1982 WALKER, ROSE ANN (mothers mn)WALLS (other surname)MAXWELL BATHGATE /WEST LOTHIAN 705/00 0200


In those indexed results you get the info of "other surname" so it's truly an unknown at this point if WALKER was their maiden names or married names since SP indexes women under both and doesn't designate in the indexes which is which! I was fortunately able to confirm a marriage is registered for a Rose Ann WALKER in Armadale. This isn't available online just yet but will be accessible when the modern marriages indexes are unveiled on SP. I didn't pursue the other record of Bessie.....she may even end up being yet another sister.

I was not however able to isolate a marriage in Scotland for Elizabeth WALKER to James Henry COLES. It may have been an irregular marriage and never got recorded or they may have married outside of Scotland. I wasn't able to find Mary Ann and John's either which makes me all the more curious to see what one of their daughter's birth certificates says about the marriage. Like I said earlier...for that unfortunatley you'll either have to visit Edinburgh or Park Circus in Glasgow in person, pay a daily admittance fee and get a transcript or order online from GROS for an extract to be prepared and mailed to you.

Best wishes
Jean

[kat44]

Hi Jean

Thank you so much, this is all wonderful!

I searched the birth index for Bessie and found this entry

1916 WALKER BESSIE F BATHGATE /WEST LOTHIAN 662/01 0312

The location fits as well so she could well be yet another sister! So those two entries for deaths you found are looking more promising.

I am now going to save up to order all of these birth certificates and wait patiently for them to arrive!! Unfortunately I can't justify travelling 300+ miles to look up the entries myself, although if these do pan out, we may have to have a holiday around that area to see what else we can dig up.

Thank you for your help :)

[kat44]

Just to say have located James & Elizabeth's marriage.

It happened in England after all between July and Sept 1946.

Also managed to find birth and death records for James' dad which I'd been struggling with :D

Today is getting better and better!