Marriage Partners

[catgudgeon]

When on FreeBMD when going to the page what do you do if there are only three people on the page sometimes five people .I thought the parteners were all on one page.Catherine

[v.wells]

Sometimes the registers haven't been transcribed by Free BMD, sometimes there are errors in the original transcription. When you find your main person you can follow the instructions on searching for the other marriages that took place in that vol, p and parish. Or you could post the name here and someone with a sub can look elsewhere for a matching spouse/or possible spouse.

[Degan]

If the county/town you are interested in is a part of the UKBMD project I'd always look there first. Not only do they have spouses linked to the search name, but they give a church as well. Some of the births give the mother's maiden name and some deaths give an age even before the GRO registers give ages. Also after the price goes up, it will be ever so slightly cheaper to buy certs from the local office rather than the GRO/ONS. Degan

[Waitabit]

At times on the scans a portion is almost indecipherable, or faded completely. If a letter or number is left off, the result won't appear with others of that page. You can try,...if you don't know the Partners name... key in the year..the month.. the district no. as it appears in the page of the partner you do have.. & enter. If there are not more than about 3000 entries it will come up with what may be your result. Perhaps the district name will be in 'italics' suggesting the no. was 'odd' for that place. If you do have an idea ofthe partners name, key that in too to be sure. I put a postit on a similar query some time back. the partner is now installed with her groom but she doesn't show under her name for the same entry codes. ie try this..
Edward henry MARTIN Jun. 1851 ...Selina HOOPER. The scan shows a faded district & Selina won't appear under St.Geo. Southk.

[Jane Elderfield]

Sometimes the registers haven't been transcribed by Free BMD, sometimes there are errors in the original transcription.

And--if you find the spouse through some other method, do look them up at FreeBMD. Click on "view image" to see the original index page. If the error is there in the indexes, it is a kindness to other researchers if you add a "postem" note at FreeBMD.

Other times, you will find that the FreeBMD transcriber has been unable to decipher an index entry, but you can. In that case, and only in the case of an erroroneous or incomplete transcription, you can file an error report. (There's a little box you tick to say that you have indeed looked at the original, and have a correction to submit.)

FreeBMD is such a wonderful help to all of us. I am truly grateful. I remember spending days of my short English travel time in the old building, pulling those heavy index books down onto the tall tables, and searching all possible spellings of a surname in every quarter of every possible year.... and now it's there in moments, at the push of a few buttons!

Jane E