1. Church Marriage Finder
(England & Wales)
1837 to 1911

2. 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

3. 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

4. Limitations of the Church Marriage Finder
The marriages are limited to England & Wales
The date is restricted to
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 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

5. 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

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

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

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

9. 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

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

11. Collecting Data for the Church Marriage Finder
Collect the GRO reference from

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

13. 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

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

15. 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

16. The data for the Church Marriage Finder is extracted

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