Family Historian User Group

Hello,

I'm trying to trace my grandparents marriage certificate. They were married in Calcutta, India in 1946. They were both British Citizens but living in India at the time as my grandfather was based there during WW11.

I have been unable to trace the certificate in the UK.

Thanks in advance.

Have you checked
https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search- ... -marriages
and
https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search- ... -marriages

Thanks Jane, I have, but no luck!

Welcome to the FHUG.
I have moved this posting to the Research Forum that is more appropriate.

If you were prepared to divulge some details of both your grandparents such as their full name and birth date & place, then other FHUG members will often search various databases on your behalf.

Thanks Mike, that is so helpful.

As well as the marriage certificate, I am also struggling to locate my grandfather's birth certificate. I did manage to find that of my grandmother.

Here are the details:

Grandfather name: Alfred Benjamin Thompson
Date of birth: 09/07/1906
Place of birth: Bow, London

Grandmother name: Sybil Lawson Beasey
Date of birth: 27/09/1914
Place of birth: London

Date of marriage: 21/10/1946
Place of marriage: Calcutta, India

Your grandfather's GRO Birth Index for Jul-Sep 1906 is:
THOMPSON Alfred Benjamin Poplar 1c 511

Your grandmother's GRO Birth Index for Oct-Dec 1914 is:
BEASEY Sybil L Pancras 1b 125

However, I am also struggling to find a Marriage entry.

That's great, thank you so much!!!!!

The marriage entry is a mystery!

I have found a Passenger List on FindMyPast for Alfred & Sybil and daughter Janet.
Departure 28/07/1950 on the Canton from Southampton to Bombay.

Oh wow!!! Janet is my mom!! She was born in 1947 in Calcutta while my grandparents were living there. She doesn't ever recall living in UK, so perhaps they were on holiday. They emigrated to Zimbabwe, not sure when.

Strangely, that Passenger List says she was 1 year old in 1950 but if born in 1947 should have been 2 or 3.

A British armed forces and overseas births and baptisms record I found says she was born in 1948 Calcutta Vol 2 Page 147.
I presume you have her Birth Certificate.

But still no Marriage details for your grandparents.

tatewise wrote:Strangely, that Passenger List says she was 1 year old in 1950 but if born in 1947 should have been 2 or 3.

A British armed forces and overseas births and baptisms record I found says she was born in 1948 Calcutta Vol 2 Page 147.
I presume you have her Birth Certificate.

Yes, you are correct, my mum was born November 1948, (getting confused with my dad!) in Calcutta.

Yes, I have her birth certificate.

I found this on Ancestry:
This might be Alfred arriving in Southampton, England on 3 March 1950, on the ship Stirling Castle which had sailed from South Africa. His country of last permanenet residence was India but his country of intended future permanent residence was England. However his wife and child are not with him. Does the address of Helston, Cornwall mean anything to you? (There were some other Thompsons on the same list but different UK addresses.)

tatewise wrote:Strangely, that Passenger List says she was 1 year old in 1950 but if born in 1947 should have been 2 or 3.

A British armed forces and overseas births and baptisms record I found says she was born in 1948 Calcutta Vol 2 Page 147.
I presume you have her Birth Certificate.

But still no Marriage details for your grandparents.

So, strange about the marriage certificate! Thank you for trying.

Very interesting about the passenger list - I am waiting to hear from my mom as to why they made the journey. I think they may have been on holiday. She has mentioned remembering visiting the UK as a very young girl, but she would have been too young to remember that trip, I'm sure!

LornaCraig wrote:I found this on Ancestry:
This might be Alfred arriving in Southampton, England on 3 March 1950, on the ship Stirling Castle which had sailed from South Africa. His country of last permanenet residence was India but his country of intended future permanent residence was England. However his wife and child are not with him. Does the address of Helston, Cornwall mean anything to you? (There were some other Thompsons on the same list but different UK addresses.)

I was just going to say that one of the places that my mom remembered visiting as a young girl was Cornwall!

I remember my mom saying that they emigrated to Zimbabwe when she was young - they were given incentives to farm there. Not sure, why my grandfather was sailing by himself to UK from SA.

Was the Southampton to Bombay journey on the Canton not after his solo trip (Departure 28/07/1950). Perhaps he had gone to SA to make plans for their move?

As both the Passenger lists have the same address in Cornwall, I suspect the address is more than a holiday location. Might be worth checking who were living there in the 1939 register and perhaps on an Electoral Roll or two for the 1950's.

In the 1939 register there was just one occupant at the White Cottage, Mullion, nr Helston. The name has been transcribed on Findmypast as "Marjory M Bmkes-Jones". Born 7 July 1881, unmarried, living on 'private means'.

I am not at all clear which marriages would end up in the GRO Index Army Marriages - was it every marriage of someone in the Forces? Just those taking place on Army premises? So I don't know if there is any reason to expect every Army marriage to end up there.

As for the Consular records, apparently it was not, and never has been, mandatory to register an overseas marriage with the British Consul. So that's a bit pot luck.

Altogether, it may not be that much of a mystery why you can't find a certificate. It's not in any accessible collection. Maybe....

NB - you should have noticed I refer to Army - I have even less idea about the RN and RAF....

AdrianBruce wrote:I am not at all clear which marriages would end up in the GRO Index Army Marriages - was it every marriage of someone in the Forces? Just those taking place on Army premises? So I don't know if there is any reason to expect every Army marriage to end up there.

As for the Consular records, apparently it was not, and never has been, mandatory to register an overseas marriage with the British Consul. So that's a bit pot luck.

Altogether, it may not be that much of a mystery why you can't find a certificate. It's not in any accessible collection. Maybe....

NB - you should have noticed I refer to Army - I have even less idea about the RN and RAF....

Thanks Adrian, I have today spoken to the General Register office and they are going to do a search of overseas records for the marriage certificate, not holding my breath though!

LornaCraig wrote:In the 1939 register there was just one occupant at the White Cottage, Mullion, nr Helston. The name has been transcribed on Findmypast as "Marjory M Bmkes-Jones". Born 7 July 1881, unmarried, living on 'private means'.

Thanks Lorna, I've tried to do an electoral search etc for that area but it didn't throw up anything. My mum recalls holidaying in Cornwall, but as you say, seems to be more of a permanent address. I wonder if they were perhaps staying with family, though "Marjory M Bmkes-Jones" doesn't ring any bells!

Progress!!!

One of my mom's relatives in Zimbabwe has just sent her this! But he says he doesn't have the original.

Who would I need to approach to obtain the original?

My mom got the marriage date wrong, which hasn't helped the search!

Where did the relative obtain this image from? If it was from a genealogy website then that site ought to show the source of the image. But perhaps it was a copy made by whoever holds the original certificate which was issued to your grandparents.

It does appear to be an image of an original certificate issued at the time of the marriage, so it is probably more 'authentic' than any modern certificate you might be able to obtain with the same information.

According to FIBIS the records for St Andrew's Church of Scotland in Calcutta have not been filmed and are only obtainable from the church seehttps://wiki.fibis.org/w/Church_records ... f_Scotland for more info

savanna wrote:... Who would I need to approach to obtain the original?

As is stated earlier, I reckon that's as good a copy as you're going to see and possibly even better than anything you'll get today.

I did have a check on ScotlandsPeople to see if the Church of Scotland connection meant that it would have been copied back to Scotland to appear in their "Minor Records" of the "Statutory Registers" but nothing appears.

Still - congratulations on finding that!