Genealogy Chat

Hi Everyone!

I'm stuck searching for a marriage. It's not on the IGI and I've now checked around 40 parish registers and am getting nowhere fast. I had the idea that perhaps a marriage licence might exist and give me a clue as to where the marriage took place. I do not have any idea whether they married by licence or banns, but there's a chance.

So the questions are does anyone know how the marriage licences are grouped by the ERO? If I'm looking for a marriage that happened 10 miles or so outside of Colchester (towards Chelmsford) where would the couple have got the licence from? The local priest or magistrate? Would they have had to go into Colchester to obtain it? I noticed SEAX had a file of licences for the Archdeaconary of Colchester, but have no idea if this would cover licences issued for use inside Colchester or outside of it. I'm not sure about the terminology they used. Seax also have a file or microfiche that says 'All Essex', but it only seems as big as the Colchester records.

Is this a valid line of research to find a marriage? Once I looked through the majority of registers for a 10 mile radius of where they were living I began to lose faith that I could find it at all. Someone suggested that I just hire someone to look for it, but I think that would be tricky still without being able to give directions of where to look and could prove expensive.

Any advice appreciated, Karen

Marriage licenses didn't exist before 1837, nor any other license for that matter.

Well, I've got a couple already that pre-date 1837!

Essex Record Office lists them as Marriage Licences: Bonds and Allegations

Faculty Office Marriage Licence Allegations 1701–1850 and Vicar-General Marriage Licence Allegations 1694–1850

The above records are now searchable on Find My Past (from Society of Genealogists) (google for free trial offer)

(Not sure if this helps, if you find what you are after, it can ordered)

(search under Parish Marriage collection)

Chris :)

Good to know, thanks Chris :)

At the Record Office at Chelmsford, the marriage licences are indexed by the groom's name, once you have the reference they will produce the original allegation and bond that your ancestor signed. The licence was issued by/on behalf of the Bishop of London

Thanks, Andrew. So it's not as bad as a needle in a haystack then! Good, good, will give it a go :)