What can you learn from a Marriage Certificate?

Names of the Bride and Groom

A marriage certificate will inevitably list the names of both the bride and the groom. For a woman that has been married before it may show the name as the maiden name or it may show it by her previous husband's surname. Often you may find that the names have not been spelt as you might expect. This is not unusual as high levels of illiteracy existed in the past.

In our example we can see the Groom is a James Scales and the Bride is Caroline Liddle. However, Scales is not the name that I expected to see here - I expected to see a James Skeels instead. If we then look at the signatures of each of the parties we can see that, rather than sign the marriage register, both parties have simply made their mark. This indicates that they were illiterate and may well explain the confusion over the spelling of James' surname.

Ages of the Bride and Groom

Knowing the correct age of the Bride and Groom at the time of marriage is very useful as it will indicate the year you need to search to find their Birth certificates. However, the age mentioned on the marriage certificate may not be as reliable as you might hope. This can be for a number of reasons -

Sometimes the age is not specified - often it may just say "Full" meaning they were over 21. Sometimes it may say "Minor" meaning that they were under 21.

Given that under 21's needed their parents' permission to marry, it was common for those under 21 to give an older age.

Large age gaps were sometimes disapproved of so ages may have been increased or decreased to reduce the age gap.

In some cases, particularly if parents had died, people may not have even been certain of their own year of birth and so errors may also creep in here.

In our example we can see that both bride and groom were of full age (over 21).

Condition

The most common options here are Bachelor, Spinster, Widow and Widower. If either party is a widow or widower then this may lead you to explore their previous marriage and when their previous spouse died. Sometimes it was surprising (by modern standards) how quickly a person remarried after a previous spouse passed away!

In our example we can see the groom was a bachelor and the bride was a spinster.

Date of Marriage

The date of marriage is generally one of the more reliable pieces of information on a marriage certificate. This is one fact that the bride and groom wouldn't have supplied and so can generally be assumed to be correct.

In our example we can see the marriage took place on 27th August 1850.

Place of Marriage

This again is one of the pieces of information that is very likely to be correct as all the records for the marriages in a Church were held together.

In our example we can see the marriage took place at the Parish Church in Stepney, Middlesex.

Rank or Profession

This information shows (frequently only the groom's) occupation.

In our example we can see that both the bride and groom were labourers.

Residence at Time of Marriage

The residence at the time of the marriage is not always that useful. If a marriage was by banns rather than license then the parties needed to have been resident in the Parish for at least a week before the banns were read. Therefore these addresses were sometimes just to get around the rules.

In our example we can see that both parties were resident in Stepney at the time of the marriage. Often a more detailed address is given - sometimes a complete street address.

Fathers' Names

The names of the fathers are an extremely useful item of data in order to go back to the previous generation. This information, combined with the ages of the child, can help identify the family in a previous census record. Sometimes however, fathers' names could be ficticious to save embarrassment if the child was illegitimate. Often it may show if the father was deceased at the time of the marriage.

In our example we can see the groom's father was Richard Scales (Skeels) and the bride's father was Joseph Liddle.

Father's Occupation

The occupation of the fathers is again useful to narrow down a search in previous census records.

In our example we can see the groom's father was a Black Smith and the bride's father was a Mariner.

Witnesses

The Witnesses are sometimes useful to help confirm (or otherwise) that the persons being married are the ones you were looking for. Frequently the witnesses will be relations or friends.

In our example we can see the witnesses were Henry Hale and Elizabeth Hutchins.