Genealogy Chat

if someone was married in 1925 would they have needed a birth certificate ?

so far as I know, a birth certificate has never had to be shown .............


the vicar / priest believed what he was told!

no a birth certificate was not needed for a marriage, a lot of women lied about there age because the legal age back then was 21. the vicar just put of full age on the certicicate

men and women also both lied about their ages if one was much older or younger than the other .........

........ one or both would lie so their ages were not so disparate!

in 1925 actual age ,as given by the parties marrying!! is on the certs

Minor or of full age was mainly used up to about 1870 depending on the vicars preference of recording info

if someone was under 21 they needed parental permission , if they didnt have it they would lie and say 21 to get over the problem

Some lied, but not quite enough, and unnecessarily

My grandfather was 17 and his wife 19 when they got married ................. the certificate says that he was 19 and she was 20


so they lied, but not enough to reach the "magic" age of 21

and, parents and siblings were present

Many people in the UK could not have had b.certs in 1925 - no one aged 71 or older born in Scotland could have one, nor could anyone aged 61 or older born in Ireland - even in England/Wales it wasn't compulsory to register births of those 51 or older.

So it wouldn't really have made sense to require b.certs be produced.

When OAPs were introduced 1908ish, proof that the applicant was over 70 was required. There was only a narrow slice of time when b.certs were available, so baptismal certs were acceptable. Even so, many folk could not produce either of those, and the census had to be unsealed literally thousands of times to provide proof of age.

thank you for all your help, been looking for a birth certificate from 1899 for quite a few years now. Wont repost details as I have another thread on here about it. will keep searching thank you Annie

Have you found the parties on the 1939 register will give the exact birth dates

Also the mariage cert should name the fathers .if known

The 1911 census too would be a good crosscheck

mgnv
I wonder if a birth cert was required in Scotland?
This sort of links to the question

I was as the GRO last week and found a marriage cert for a relative which was dated 1935.

I also found the bride's birth cert which I found really odd.

Born in 1914, 2 yrs before her parents marriage.
It appears that her birth was never registered or at least, never found it's way onto the register

I thought it odd that in 1935, 2 weeks prior to her marriage, her father retrospectively registered her birth.

Based on the timing/date, I think that her upcoming marriage had something to do it.
Why would her birth be registered 21 years after the fact and so close to her marriage.

Perhaps she was to be baptised before her Church Of Scotland marriage and proof of her birth was required for this?

Even though compulsory registration started in 1875 some births still weren't registered

I know personally of a lady born in 1893 whose birth wasn't registered
Her father deserted from the army and hid out at home . The army or police. not sure which now , would come to the home from time to time and his wife would say no she hadn't seen him
Welll !!!!! she had another baby but couldn't register her as it would be obvious he had been home at some time!!

She married in 1915. I have the cert and her father is named and was one of the witnesses

Caused problems when the lady was applying for her state pension and all sorts of documents had to provided to support her birth date as she didn't have a birth cert and her parents had long been deceased

GL - certainly no b.cert would be required for a baptism.

In fact, until 2006, no m.cert was required for a legal Scottish marr, as marriage by cohabitation and repute was still a legal way to contract a marriage - in England, this was called a common law marriage (but not really appropriate naming in Scotland as Scotland never had a common law).

I think your example might have had more to do with the fact that the bride was leaving her parents. When my daughter left home we gave her her b.cert - well, we would have done if we could have found it. As it was we had to order a new copy for her.

got the 1939 register on findmypast but cannot find birth . thankyou for your help , I'm thinking she wasn't registered . I now have 5 birth certificates for Alice Boulton so think I will give in x