Warning: Before you read this blog post, make sure you have done your chores, run errands, prepared dinner, and taken the kids to wherever they need to go. What you are going to learn may be addictive, causing you to forget everything, but genealogy.
If you have a General Register Office reference for a marriage registration in England or Wales, the Guild of One-Name Studies’ Marriage Locator may help you determine the name of the church where the couple married.
To use the Marriage Locator, you need the year, quarter, volume, and page number for the registration.
Finding the GRO reference
To find this information, search for a marriage registration on FreeBMD (Free Births, Marriages, Deaths) by entering one or both of the bridal couple’s names.
You will then see the year, quarter, volume, and page number for the marriage registration index. (If not sure the George Jones you found is your George, click on the index page number to see the names of two or three other grooms and brides. If your bride is there, you’ve likely found your George.)
Civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths in England and Wales started in 1837. You will not find marriages that took place before 1837 in the Marriage Locator.
The transcribing of the registrations is carried out by FreeBMD volunteers, and they are transcribing index information from 1837 to 1992. FreeBMD is an ongoing project. Not all of the registrations have been transcribed, but most marriages up to 1983 are there.
Church images
Once you’ve found the name of the church and its location, you can search for it on Google to possibly find photos, YouTube videos, and more information.
For example, I discovered on the Marriage Locator that my great-grandparents were married at St. Botolph Church in Northfleet, Kent in 1886. A search on Google quickly produced a video about the history of the church and images of the exterior and interior, including the cemetery.
St. Botolph’s Church, Northfleet, Kent, England. Photo: Clem Rutter. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Note that the Marriage Locator is still a work in progress, and not all the data needed for all marriages is yet available.
Gail,
I have to comment on the idea that churches can be found using only the data from the GRO record. There are many parishes, and their associated churches, that are located within the same Registration District. The indexed quarter, volume and page numbers only normally get you to the RD.
For example, a search of the marriage of one of my 2nd great-grandparents in Devon, England, on the GOONS marriage index resulted in a comment, “Sorry, we cannot locate the church for this marriage. The entry is located between entries for Plymouth St James the Great (RD: Stoke Damerel) and Hatherleigh (RD: Okehampton).” They were married in Stoke Damerel. (And the index has the spelling of great-grandfather’s name wrong – but that is another story.) Another search for one of my great-grandparents, who married in Ellacombe Parish, Tormoham, Devon, got this comment, “The entry is located between entries for Exeter St Petrock (RD: Exeter) and Wolborough St Mary (RD: Newton Abbot).”
As an Online Parish Clerk for four Devon parishes, I run into this problem all the time. Researchers find the location of a birth, marriage or death as Plympton St. Mary and mistake it as being the parish rather than the RD of the same name. In many cases the actual locality of the event is in one of the 24 parishes within that particular RD.
The GOONS Marriage Locator site actually recommends that researchers contact an Online Parish Clerk, if there is one, to assist in finding the particular church. Or purchase the certificate which will show where the marriage was solemnized. It may not have always been a church.
Wayne Shepheard
OPC for Cornwood, Harford, Plympton St. Mary and Plympton St. Maurice, Devon, England
Stoke DAMEREL George Mc Partland married there in Devon, he was based at Plymouth Barracks… he later came to Carterton NZ (put NZ as there is one in Oxford UK!) he was with the 49th Foot Regiment. Probably been there myself as since I am from UK and we used to have holidays in West Country.. lovely part of UK.
Interesting insight, Wayne… When I have time, I’m going to test it out for myself, using marriages where I already know the church. Should be interesting.
Thanks for the info, Gail 🙂
I wrote about this in the November issue of Family Tree Magazine (UK). Often, several churches shared a Registration district & that causes problems.