Marriage requirements

[Pamelawagster]

Would a person getting married in 1940 needed to have produced their birth cert? They were born c1920.

[MarkJ]

I don't think it is a legal requirement to produce one - but some church officials like to see evidence of baptism for example.

I got married in 1986 and didn't have to produce anything.

[malcolm99]

I don't know, but everyone had to carry an Identity Card in 1940 and if that was sufficient for the police I suspect it was accepted everywhere for most purposes.

[malcolm99]

As far as I can see a marriage in 1940 between 2 people resident in England would have been carried out under the Marriage and Registration Act 1856. Section 2 of that Act didn't require a birth certificate to be produced, see: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/...ion/II/enacted

The next general legislation was the 1949 Marriage Act and that made no mention of birth certificates being required:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/...ion/27/enacted

[Mutley]

I was married in 1982, I remember going to see the registrar on my own to book the date. I also remember being asked our father's names. Spouse was adopted so I said "don't know" and father unknown was recorded. Spouse was not worried about it so it was left as I'd said.

If I could go back again, after doing family history, I could now tell them who his father was.
However, if in 1982 I did not produce documents, I doubt they were necessary in 1940.

[Peter Goodey]

Surely an adopted person's legal father is the adoptive father.

[Mutley]

I was married in 1982, I remember going to see the registrar on my own to book the date. I also remember being asked our father's names. Spouse was adopted so I said "don't know" and father unknown was recorded. Spouse was not worried about it so it was left as I'd said.

If I could go back again, after doing family history, I could now tell them who his father was.


However, if in 1982 I did not produce documents, I doubt they were necessary in 1940.

Surely an adopted person's legal father is the adoptive father.

Tis so.
But I did not have or did not seem to need either his birth certificate or his adoption papers and certainly did not have them with me, both were dead, neither were mine. I had no idea... back then.
My answer, therefore, was "don't know" and column 7 and 8 has only a dash!

My point was, and as you well know Peter because we have this question often, the information in the father's column is that what was verbally given at the time and is not necessarily the truth.