Where do these indexed items come from?
Index record https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVD8-4JYQ is in the collection England and Wales, Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005. It includes the following items:
Name | Edward T Taylor |
|---|---|
Spouse's Name | Patricia M Bennett |
Marriage License Date | 1951 |
Event Type | Marriage Registration |
Event Date | from Jan 1951 to Mar 1951 |
Event Place | Cheshire, England, United Kingdom |
Event Place (Original) | Cheshire, England |
Page Number | 1383 |
Volume | 10A |
Affiliate Line Number | 104 |
(Here's hoping you can read the table that Vanilla has created from my paste…)
Firstly, where does the item "Marriage License Date" come from? This is a rhetorical question because I know that it simply doesn't exist on the original index file. I am not familiar with the exact legal process today but when this collection was started in 1837, the great majority of marriages took place in church where the couple's marriage was published through banns and the couple did not have a license to marry.
Any researcher needs to have the full marriage certificate in front of them to know whether banns or licenses were involved. That information is not available on the index and the item Marriage License Date should be removed.
Secondly we are told that this event is a marriage registration. Yes, but in the period 1837 - 2005, in England & Wales, the marriage registration took place as part of the marriage ceremony so surely this should be described as a Marriage event, not a Marriage Registration. (We know that multiple spousal relationship events such as marriages, marriage banns and marriage registrations cause issues to the display of data on profiles as only the first appears).
Thirdly, the FreeBMD entry for this looks like this:
Surname First name(s) Spouse District Vol Page
Marriages Mar 1951
TAYLOR Edward T BENNETT Stockport 10a 1383
Note that the District is Stockport (which is in Cheshire), but the event on the FS index is simply recorded as Cheshire. What happened to the detailed placename of Stockport? (I suspect that the original index for this item was provided to FS by FindMyPast and have this vague, possibly incorrect, idea that stuff from FMP has been lost before).
Best Answer
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@Adrian Bruce1 In looking at our entire Marriage Index, the missing registration district was a very low percentage. Same with the added "Marriage License" field. We will put this on the list to be monitored and thanks for bringing it to our attention.
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Answers
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Just for comparison purposes, the extract on Ancestry:
Name
Edward T Taylor
Registration Date
Jan 1951[Feb 1951][Mar 1951]
Registration Quarter
Jan-Feb-Mar
Registration District
Stockport
Inferred County
Cheshire
Spouse
Volume Number
10a
Page number
1383
The Registration Date has been changed multiple times due to the interpretation and misinterpretation of the Registration Quarter.
The Source Info on Ancestry readsOriginal data: General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. London, England: General Register Office. © Crown copyright. Published by permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Office for National Statistics. You must not copy on, transfer or reproduce records without the prior permission of ONS. Indexes created by the General Register Office, in London, England.
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