Genealogy Chat

This is something that the Guild of One Name Studies started / is running. It is a work in progress so will improve.

A volunteer goes to the relevant record office and looks at the marriages in the area they are planning to cover. This is from the website quoted above:

"The "sufficient information" required about the entries in the Index has been built up - and is still being built up - by a number of volunteers. Each chooses a Registration District to work on, and visits the County Record Office that most closely covers that Registration District (RD). For each of the churches within that RD, they take the following steps:

First, identifying the earliest marriage in a quarter for a church, and noting down the names of the bride and groom.

Doing the same for the last marriage in the quarter.

Finally, using an online service, or FreeBMD, to find the page numbers where those two marriages have been indexed. These two page numbers, representing the first and last marriages in a quarter, are what have been termed the "Cardinal Points" for that church.

The consequence of this is that if you are presented with a GRO Index reference in that same quarter for a page number which is between those Cardinal Points, then the marriage must have taken place in that church, and the details can be found in the church's Marriage Register. That means you don't have to spend £9.25 to obtain a copy certificate from the GRO or the local Register Office; instead, you simply have to look up the original church Marriage Register in the County Record Office."

It's a slow process but it will be helpful when (and if) complete. It's something any of you could do ...

Jill

I got "West Ham RO/NC' when searching one of mine, they did marry in a registry office which I would guess the RO means.

The site says "Anglian church" so I would have thought if your family was of another faith then perhaps that is what the NC [Non-Conformist??] means

I keep getting the "Sorry, we cannot locate the church...." message each time I try.

The idea is clever but I think it might need working on a bit more.

Are these certs that can be viewed on ancestry up until 1921 or all over the country?

jax

My aunt's marriage in 1935 couldn't be found and my grandparents' in 1906 showed up like this

'Sorry, we cannot locate the church for this marriage. The entry is located between entries for Bishop Ryder and Birmingham St George, both in RD Birmingham.' I have the marriage cert anyway so I know that it was Bishop's Ryder.

I like the idea though because this would have narrowed down the churches needed to search. Years ago before children I used to go into Birmingham Library one night a week after work. I looked at so many films just working my way through them for possible entries. The IGI helped a lot but I'm going to go through all the names on my tree, find them on FreeBMD and see if I can make a list. Don't know what the situation is with Bham Central Library anymore but when I have time........

Thanks for passing the info on.

J

Marilyn
Thank you for posting this. Potentially it is a really good idea and when more records are added then more people will benefit.
Jan
There is a way of working out the churches which is much too complicated to explain on here so it is possible but it does involve looking parish records as well
The GRO registers are set out in a certain order for marriages.
I've not explained that very well I'm afraid.
Joan
I'm sure people who visit records offices would be willing to do look ups if they know the church as it will be much quicker.
I know I would.
take care
Von

I tried it on two or three that I already had, and they were right !!??

How on earth would they know though?

Quote:

"This is the purpose of this website: to deduce, from the year, quarter, volume number and page that you have acquired from the GRO indexes, where the marriage took place. "

Is this just hazarding a guess??

Jan

Just happened to land on what could be a very useful website for those who dont know about it. At the moment it is still work in progress but out of 5 marriages I tried it found me 3.

You just put in Year, Quarter No., Volume and Page from the GRO index and it tells you the church the couple married in. Could save a fortune in Marriage Certificates as you could look them up in Record Offices and just get a copy there.

The website is

www.marriage-locator.co.uk/

Off now to look for some marriages.

Marilyn