Church Marriage Finder (England & Wales) 1837 to 1911 http://surname-society.org/marriage-finder/

What is the Church Marriage Finder? An index to match the GRO Marriage Index to a Church of England church Why do we need it? To find out in which church a marriage took place so the original marriage register can be consulted, therefore circumventing the need to purchase a marriage certificate Paper and online Parish Registers Transcripts and Indexes often have mistranscriptions and omissions [often pages and sometimes whole registers missing online] Sometimes Parish Registers online are misindexed under the wrong parish name especially if combined with the above

Where do we look next if we cannot find our marriages? Purchase the certificate (£9.25) - last resort Sometimes marriages did not make it into the GRO Index! (This is only a secondary source) Some registers have not survived or are still in the churches Some marriages did not make it past the local registrar’s office so maybe found there

Limitations of the Church Marriage Finder The marriages are limited to England & Wales The date is restricted to 1837 - 1911 The data is restricted to C of E Marriages The GRO numbers after the end of C of E Marriages are used for Register Office, Non Conformist, Roman Catholic and Jewish marriages (Examples from Medway RD) e.g. GRO Number 349 on the 1837 q3 and GRO 499 1837 q4 refer to non C of E marriages. The quantity of marriages is larger in later years as Non Conformist churches became more popular. In 1911 q4 there are non C of E marriages from number GRO 1477 to GRO 1547 The Church Marriage Finder online only contains completed Registration Districts as listed

The GRO Indexes How they are formed? Every Quarter Church sends copies of Marriage Registers to the Local Register Office Local Register Office makes up an index of all parishes in Registration District and sends to GRO The GRO combines all the RDs information into one index They arrange the index in the order of Large Areas, Approximate counties, RDs and then parish

Registration Districts These can be found on http://maps.familysearch.org Also they are listed on genuki.org.uk Go to link Click Map to select Poor Law Union

Volume Number Map These maps can be bought online produced by ihgs Two maps Eg Norfolk 4b Essex & Suffolk 4a

Collecting Data for the Church Marriage Finder – volunteers needed! This is the template we will supply (instructions included)

Collecting Data for the Church Marriage Finder – volunteers needed! Collect data from Parish Registers (e.g. Chatham St Mary the Virgin) Source Show ancestry as well as city ark

Collecting Data for the Church Marriage Finder Add data from Parish Register

Collecting Data for the Church Marriage Finder Collect the GRO reference from http://www.freebmd.org.uk

Collecting Data for the Church Marriage Finder Add GRO Reference from Free BMD

Send to co-ordinator (churches@surname-society.org) File Types accepted are CSV, XLS and XLSX Please name file as parish name (e.g. Chatham St Mary the Virgin) Please ask me before starting a new parish as many have already been completed

What Happens Next? The co-ordinator makes a list of all the parishes in a registration district (Church of England only)

The data from all the parishes is collated into one file If you are lucky and the marriage you want is the first or last of the quarter then basic details are available in marriage search This data is sent to the Surname Society For the Church Marriage Finder and the Marriage Search

The data for the Church Marriage Finder is extracted

Go to http://surname-society.org/marriage-finder/ Available to all