Marriage certificate

[Orangeblossom]

I have some marriage certificates and I was wondering if there is anywhere that would have the original signatures of my ancestors?

I would like to see their handwriting, instead of the vicar's lol

Is it possible?

[Pamdidle]

Tracy.

You will need to see the church records. They will be on micro fiche or film at the relevant record office or archive. Depending how far back , a lot of them just made a X their mark. I have a few that could write, and it was quite moving when l first saw them.



Pam

[Orangeblossom]

I have a few with X Mark, but quite a lot don't. I assume this was because they did their own signature.

Trip to Huddersfield it is!

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

In future if you buy marriage certs from the local registrar instead of the GRO you may get their original sigs as long as the reg office is willing to send you an photocopy, rather than a typed or modern day handwritten copy of their record. Be warned though that some local offices will not do family history certs, and some will not issue marriage certs unless you know the marriage venue and date, rather than just the Q in which it occured!

[Orangeblossom]

I'll try that for the next one and see what happens

[Orangeblossom]

I just found scans of original certificates from 1919 and 1920. The 'signatures' are in the same handwriting as the rest of the cert

As it happens, I have a GRO copy of the 1919 one, and it is the same handwriting on both.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Was the 1919 marriage a register office wedding?

[Orangeblossom]

Nope, in a CoF Church. The scan has a stamp and everything.

Wish I had it. It's my GGrandparents marriage. For some reason, the GGnephew of his brother's wife has it lol

[Lyn A]

Nope, in a CoF Church. The scan has a stamp and everything.

Are you quite sure it is a scan of the original?

I have a birth cert for my Da that has a stamp on it, but it wasn't issued until he was 24yrs old.

[Orangeblossom]

Yes, the dates are the same as the marriage dates.

[Lyn A]

It was just a thought. Unusual for the signatures to be in the same handwriting. Maybe they all went to the same school. LOL!!

[Anne in Carlisle]

I think that at a marriage the certificate in the book (ie Parish register) is the one the bride and groom sign or make their mark in. Sometimes they also sign a separate certificate to take away themselves but sometimes the vicar has already written it out beforehand - presumably to save time.

Therefore the one most likely to have the original signatures is the one in the parish record - probably now on microfiche in the county archive.

Anne

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

If you marry in a C of E church you sign two certs.....one will eventually end up at the county RO as part of the PR and the other eventually goes to the local register office.

The vicar will hand write two copies as well........one at the end of the Q to go to the GRO and the other to give to the bride and groom on the wedding day. (I just looked at mine that I was handed after my first wedding and we have not signed it, the vicar wrote it all)

[Orangeblossom]

Ahh, that makes sense. Thanks.

When I got married, we had to sign 4 copies lol

[Little Nell]

I can't remember how many we signed, but I know my brother-in-law, one of the witnesses, had bought a special pen as a present and was a bit piqued when the registrar said that we had to use their official pen because of the special ink in it!

[Uncle John]

I can't remember how many we signed, but I know my brother-in-law, one of the witnesses, had bought a special pen as a present and was a bit piqued when the registrar said that we had to use their official pen because of the special ink in it!

One of our ministers kept a special pen for registers because the indelible ink rots or clogs up the insides of a fountain pen.

[KiteRunner]

If your ancestors got married at the register office, then IF the register office is one that will do photocopies of the original cert instead of writing / typing it out for you, then you will get to see their signatures.

[Christine in Herts]

If your ancestors got married at the register office, then IF the register office is one that will do photocopies of the original cert instead of writing / typing it out for you, then you will get to see their signatures.

Sandwell Register Office, in the W Midlands, has told me that they don't have the facilities to do photocopy certs from their registers. I had asked because my grandparents' marriage was at the Register Office, so I knew there wouldn't be any relevant parish registers I could get at. However, because I had a specific reason (trying to match my grandfather's signature at his wedding in 1911 to his Social Security Number application in the USA in 1936) they were kind enough to send me a copy of that bit of the cert. The signatures matched (in spite of the 25 year time-gap) and I had proved that the man in the USA was my grandfather - and that the family I had speculatively researched as his was the right one! :D

Christine