Signatures on Marriage Certificate

[Olde Crone Holden]

OK, I have never married in church and don't know anyone well enough who has, but that means you must sign your name THREE times then - two registers, one marriage cert to take away with you?

Yes? No?

And if the Vicar sends away one register to the GRO for his returns....what happens to people who marry while the book is at the local Register Office being copied? What do they sign?

OC

[Anne in Carlisle]

I was surprised to see that Merry said the vicar copies the certificate for the GRO. I would have thought it was a clerk at the Register Office?? Don't know now

Am I right or wrong here: ......
There are four copies of a certificate
1. the one the bride and groom take away
2. the one in the church register - eventually lodged in the County Archives
3. the copy at the local Register Office
4. the copy at the GRO

I don't even remember signing more than one (the one I made the mistake on - can still feel myself blushing now after 38 years!)

Anne

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I think thigs have changed since 1983 when everything was digitized, but before that.....

Yes, I signed three marriage certs when I married in church. I can remember two large black books and the one we took away with us, which was loose (obviously!)


The register office may not receive the churches copy of the marriage register for many years. This is why sometimes the cert is not available from the local registrars (if they haven't let got the register). This happened to me when I tried to get a copy of my uncle's marriage cert. It was in the 1950's but the local registrar hadn't got the book yet and so I had to apply to the church!! (the CRO hadn't let got their copy because it wasn't full either.....obviously they are completed in tandem.)

The GRO get loose summary sheets (before 1983....don't know about now) from the vicar each Q, so the GRO should be up to date but not the local reg office.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I was surprised to see that Merry said the vicar copies the certificate for the GRO. I would have thought it was a clerk at the Register Office?? Don't know now

Am I right or wrong here: ......
There are four copies of a certificate
1. the one the bride and groom take away
2. the one in the church register - eventually lodged in the County Archives
3. the copy at the local Register Office
4. the copy at the GRO

I don't even remember signing more than one (the one I made the mistake on - can still feel myself blushing now after 38 years!)

Anne

Def the vicar (I'm only talking about C of E as other churches are not all the same). Who is it on here whose marriage cert details could not be read properly by the indexer at the GRO because they couldn't read her father's writing? (He was the vicar who married them!)

No 4 in your list above is the one with no sigs......hand written by the vicar at the end of the Q. No 3 in your list is the second bound volume, the first being No 2 in your list.

[Anne in Carlisle]

Merry - I was obviously so embarassed that I didn't notice anything else after the first one with the mistake! Looks as if I've not noticed much else in the susquent 38 years

Ho hum .... I got my Senior citizens railcard today ... its all downhill from here:p

Anne

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Although this article is talking about a slightly different aspect, it may help....

http://www.familytreeforum.com/wiki/index.php/Victorian_Registrars_and_the_GRO

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Merry - I was obviously so embarassed that I didn't notice anything else after the first one with the mistake! Looks as if I've not noticed much else in the susquent 38 years



Anne

Isn't it awful when you can't forget something like that!!

[Muggins in Sussex]

ooooh, how I hate to disagree (takes deep breath!)

When you marry in a C of E church you sign two copies of the marriage cert. One of the marriage registers will eventually end up at the County Record Office and the other one will end up at the local Register Office. So if you get your cert from either of those places it should have the original handwriting on it. (which is why I can't understand why yours appears not to!)

The copy at the GRO will be in the handwriting of the vicar as he is the one who will have made the quarterly return to the GRO.

*scuttles away*

I think my cert must have the original handwriting on it - it's just that the bride and groom had uncannily similar handwriting!!

What I don't understand is why, if an original copy is at the Register Office, they don't always just photocopy it when a copy is requested - surely it would be much simpler than copying it all out in longhand?

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Some of the books are too thick to open out far enough, I think......and some of the books are too fragile.

The worst is if they are hand copied or typed by someone not used to Victorian handwriting. I've got some very odd certs from local offices!!

[Muggins in Sussex]

Thanks Merry

It's just that a few times recently I have got copy certs from the Local Registry for events that happened in the 1980's ( including my own marriage cert!) - and they were all rewritten as opposed to copied

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I think if you ask for a cert after 1983 then it has to be handwritten or typed because they take the details from a computer record. I'm not at all sure of this though, so I wonder if anyone else knows?

[Christine in Herts]

Def the vicar (I'm only talking about C of E as other churches are not all the same). Who is it on here whose marriage cert details could not be read properly by the indexer at the GRO because they couldn't read her father's writing? (He was the vicar who married them!)

'Twas I!

And my father was The Rector, not The Vicar. :D Of course, to all intents and purposes, that's the same thing, but it mattered a lot to the Locals, because it meant that there was more history attached.

The reason I found out about the indexing error was because I have misplaced my original and was looking it up to get a replacement. I was more than a bit baffled to find that I didn't seem to have got married that quarter after all - and my husband had married some other woman!

Christine