Civil Marriage Records

[Peanuts]

Can anyone help please :

I have been searching for a marriage around 1855/1860 and have been unable to find any records relating to the couple - Balkwill/Long - I put up a request for help here but although my details were checked nothing could be found. Devon Record Office have said it could have been a civil marriage - are civil marriages recorded somewhere other than "normal" marriage records?

Jean

[Olde Crone Holden]

Peanuts

All events are recorded at the REGISTER office, not the Records Office. Records Offices will only have copies of old church registers.

So you need to approach the Register Office local to the event and ask them to do a search.

Or stick the details on here and let us have another go. They may never have married of course.

OC

[Little Nell]

And be glad it isn't a London Register Office which doesn't do genealogy requests. Don't get me started again about my gt grandmother Emma's 2nd marriage and Islington Reg Office's fobbing me off to the GRO despite my explaining that the GRO don't have the marriage in their indexes and so won't be able to produce a certificate.

[Peanuts]

Balkwill/long Marriage

Thank you for your offer O.C. The details I have are as follows:

John Balkwill born Peters Marland, Devon 1833 - I have his birth/baptism details and the details of his second marriage to a Selina Pellow and his death certificate.

Ellen Long born Colyton, Devon 1837 - I have her birth certificate and her death certificate (Falmouth 1865)

First child Thomas Balkwill born Exeter 1860 - registered St. Sidwell - I have a copy of his birth/marriage/death certificates (he is my paternal grandfather)

Second and third children Mary Ann and Ellen Jnr. born in Falmouth.

On the childrens' birth certificates Ellen is shown as Ellen Balkwill formerly Long, on her death certificate she is shown as Ellen Balkwill and on John Balkwill's second marriage certificate he is shown as a "widower".

I have checked b/m/d - Ancestry - Find my Past - requests on this site - requests on Devon Family History Society and have contacted other "Balkwill" family researchers to no avail.

The annoying thing is that I have full details on the rest of the family going back to 1686. I keep putting them on the back boiler for a month or so and then have another try - this is my worse brickwall - so far!

Any help would be much appreciated.

Jean

[Little Nell]

I can't see this marriage - or even a mistranscribed likely one - online. I think you will have to contact the register office covering the reg district where first child was registered and hope they married there.

[Little Nell]

Of course if its misindexed, or the copy cert never got to the GRO, it doesn't mean it was a civil marriage. Although these were possible they were relatively rare. I suppose you could try checking the banns books for both John and Ellen's home parishes to see if there's a mention. If they were living elsewhere though, at the time of the marriage, then it won't be there. And it is possible - I've found this a few times - that they went elsewhere to be married, either because they were marrying from a relative's home or because they combined it with a short holiday.

My husband's gt x 2 grandparents lived all their lives in Covent Garden area of London and despite the prevalence of lovely churches there, they chose to marry in Romford, where gt x 2 grandma's aunt lived (though her parents were still in Covent Garden).

[Christine in Herts]

I've had a quick look on my Plymouth (area) 1837+ Marriage Index CDs, just in case, but can't see anything promising for you. There are BALKWILL (or BALKWELL) grooms and LONG brides, but not in combination.

Christine

[Vicky the Viking]

any chance he could have joined the army for a few years & married abroad?

[Peanuts]

Civil Marriages

Thank you all for your input.

As far as I am aware John did not join the military. He was a carpenter working in the docks and later when he moved to London he worked on the railways as a platelayer.

I will contact the Register Office to see if they can help.

Thank you again

Jean

[Christine in Herts]

Have you tried looking for BACKWILL? or BASKWILL?

S/L in script do look very similar, and several of us have had problems because of it! I mentioned C as another letter which might end up resembling L.

Christine

[Christine in Herts]

Might be worth looking for BARKWILL as well - possible a phonetic variant. There are some marriages with the BALKWILL/BARKWILL surname in Cookbury, N Devon - batch M051811.

Christine