Family Historian User Group

Watching WDYTYA with Gareth Malone, I was surprised to see him ,on a genealogical website, viewing a copy of one of his ancestors marriage certificate.

I've been 'fh'ing for some years and have never known of such a site! Anybody guide me please.

I think it was Ancestry and their "West Yorkshire, England, Marriages and Banns, 1813-1935" collection. The point is that post-1837 marriages in churches were recorded twice - once in a register destined for the local Superintendent Registrar, and once in the parish register belonging to the church. The forms were identical.

The SR's register eventually ended up in his office, though copies were sent to the GRO (eventually) every quarter. But the parish register stayed with the church, eventually going to wherever the church and / or diocese wanted old registers to go - usually the County Record Office. From there, they have, many of them, ended up on the WWW - e.g. Cheshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire and Shropshire, to quote my local counties. By no means all of the parishes let their registers go up, even in those counties.

There are lots of London (East End) parish registers on Ancestry, that's where quite a lot of my ancestors come from. FindMyPast and FamilySearch have them too. You have just been unlucky not finding any of yours .

As part of two One Name Studies I have downloaded well over 1000 marriage 'certificates' from London and West Yorkshire. Certainly makes the subs to Ancestry and Find My Past worth while!
Anne

Thanks for your responses.
Yep, it does look as none of my ancestors records are in in the on-line parishes. Just my luck!

Don't know about your actual marriage certificates, but I'm having a lot of success trawling through Gloucestershire parish registers and bishop's transcripts. Loads of them now on Ancestry.