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  1. #1

    Default Any ways to find more details on a marriage?

    Hi. I think I know the answer to this, but wanted to sound out people with more experience to check I'm not missing something.

    I want to track a marriage. I know her original name, and her married name. (Williams and Smith, thanks a bunch!)

    I've used Ancestry to narrow down to six possible marriages. None of these are ones that have the birth dates of individuals (looking at 1940s and 1950s marriages - just the married names on Ancestry).

    Are there any other online resources anyone can suggest that may allow me to tease out any more details on these marriages?

    I suspect I'll just have to buy the certs one by one and hope one of them is a hit, but before dishing out about £70 I wanted to at least throw this out there to see if I was missing anything.

    Many thanks!

  2. #2
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    Doesn't the birth certificate of one of the children provide enough information to track down the marriage?

  3. #3

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    I know of no children.

  4. #4
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    So not an ancestor, then.

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  6. #6
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    Do you have the full DoB of this lady, or just the year?

    If you have her full DoB then have you tried looking for her death (assuming she is now deceased), as after 1969 this was also included on the death certificate, and on the indexes.

    Her death certificate is then likely to also give her husband’s name.

    Unfortunately this isnt fool-proof as depending on when she died the full index may not be online.

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    Do you know the name of the father? If you do you can input that as one of the criteria when ordering a certificate such that you will get a certificate that has the right father's name on it. There is a small search fee. Check out the GRO frequently asked questions page.

  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jomot1 View Post
    Do you have the full DoB of this lady, or just the year?

    If you have her full DoB then have you tried looking for her death (assuming she is now deceased), as after 1969 this was also included on the death certificate, and on the indexes.

    Her death certificate is then likely to also give her husband’s name.

    Unfortunately this isnt fool-proof as depending on when she died the full index may not be online.
    I did and thought I had a good lead on that, but unfortunately it was wrong. No deaths match
    now with the exact DoB.

    Quote Originally Posted by Megan Roberts View Post
    Do you know the name of the father? If you do you can input that as one of the criteria when ordering a certificate such that you will get a certificate that has the right father's name on it. There is a small search fee. Check out the GRO frequently asked questions page.
    I was just looking at that, but they require a wedding date which I don't have.

    If I brute force it, and say put in a year of one of the possible entries, and put in the father... what happens? I can't find any info on the GRO website.

    Will they not send a cert if it doesn't match the father? Will they send the one that I clearly was going for despite some mismatch? If they don't send it do they refund it?

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by antonyf View Post

    If I brute force it, and say put in a year of one of the possible entries, and put in the father... what happens? I can't find any info on the GRO website.

    Will they not send a cert if it doesn't match the father? Will they send the one that I clearly was going for despite some mismatch? If they don't send it do they refund it?
    If it doesn't match exactly with the details you have supplied then they will refund you, although I believe they now retain a £3.50 admin fee.

  10. #10
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    What the GRO forms require you to do is:

    On page 1 enter the year - that applies to every certificate bought whether or not you know the GRO references. On that same page it will ask you if know the GRO references. If say "yes" you do NOT have the option on page 2 to input the name of the father, so if you want to search using the father's name then you have to say that you do not know the GRO references.

    On page 2 where you asked to input the date it says in italics that if you don't know the exact date then use 1 January of the year you want searched

    In terms of prices and refunds as of this morning, for marriage certificates (they are not available as pdfs):

    With a GRO reference - £11
    Without a GRO reference £14

    If they can't find a certificate that matches the search criteria you have specified you get a refund but they retain £3.50 to cover admin costs.

    In terms of your search criteria it might be a quick phone call to Southport on this, because I have a feeling that sometimes as family historians we "know too much". What I mean by that is we know from a certificate that the dad was John Paul Smith, but in life he was always Paul Smith, and that's how his daughter recorded him on her marriage certificate. So would that be a match or not?

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