Genealogy Chat

Thanks for all the help so far folks...where should i put the details so helpfuls can have a look! New to this sorry.

Roger - what are the names you are looking for? Quite a few times when people have had this sort of query it has turned out that the entry they had found was not the right one and they would have wasted their money ordering the cert. If you post the names up then I expect a few people will search and see if they can come up with a match for both names. Kate.

I have had two wrong entries - Cheel for Cheal and Dickson for Dixon.

Hi Roger, I can vouch for the fact that sometimes the surname of one of the parties has been written incorrectly in the original register, and obviously this has repercussions for anyone trying to trace the marriage, or for using the 'correct' name as a check. My grandfather appears in the GRO marriage index, but NOT my granny. Luckily, my father had seen the original, before it was posted off to Canada to his younger brother, and had written down the details. My granny was Mary Ann Mc Donough, but the name on the certificate was Mary Ann Mc Donald, so if Dad hadn't had the presence of mind to make a copy, I would still be searching now, 18 years on. Even if I had combed the local record office and gone through PR for each individual church I wouldn't have found it as it was a registry office wedding Jay

If you do your search on FreeBMD instead of 1837online (well covered in the 1890's), then you can click on the page number when you have found one partner, to see who the potential spouses are. For the 1890's there should be either one bride and one groom or (more commonly) two brides and two grooms per page and volume number. If you have four names showing (2 male and 2 female, obviously!) then it's unlikely that anything is missing from the transcription or indexes and if you cannot see the ''right'' spouse, then you may be looking at the wrong date/place altogether! Does that make sense? merry

usually there are an even number of people on a page ( as opposed to an odd number) there is no telling who marrid who~unless you know what you are looking for. tell you what, throw us the names and dates and where abouts and let someone else have a look

I very much doubt if anything is ever 'always right'. Anything involving human beings will involve human error. It's possible your grandfather has been mistranscribed - or even missed off. You can ask for the one for your grandmother, but specify the groom's name as a checking point. Then if it isn't right, you only lose £3 instead of £7 and get a cert you don't want. Alternatively, you could ask the local register office for the district the marriage of your supposed grandmother is indexed in, if they can check. nell

I am reseraching the marriage of my grandparents - circa 1890 I have been using the 1837 online website to view registers. I have found two possibles for my grand mother, however when i try and find my grand father he doesnt appear in the register. This i presume either means that : ive either got the wrong names, or my grand father was missed off the register Should i pay to get the certificates to confirm if he was missed off the register, or are the registers always right? Hoping someone can help