Bertram Merrell’s Index of English Marriages Licenses, Chester Diocese 1750-1779

The index is contained on one CD. It is the first part of a larger project to index all of the marriage licenses, 1750-1837. Thanks to Bertram Merrell for his time and effort in extracting and preparing the data for publication.

In England, a couple was married either by Banns or by License. Licenses had to be obtained through the diocesan office exercising authority over a select area. Application was made to the Bishop of the diocese, and a bond (fee) was paid. Because of this, comparatively few couples were married by license. More than 30,000 marriage records are indexed during 1750-1779. Since the names of the groom, bride, father, mother and others are included the number of names could be 70,000.

The data on the CD index is in a table format set up as a PDF document. It is fully searchable. If a piece of information doesn’t appear in the index, it was missing in the original record. The following information appears in the index.


 * Year of marriage
 * Parish and county of the marriage
 * For the groom:
 * Given name and surname
 * Age
 * Parish and county of residence, if different from the marriage place
 * Marital status
 * Occupation
 * Name of Father and mother
 * For the bride:
 * Given and surname
 * Age
 * Marital status
 * Name of father and mother

The notes are especially helpful because they show additional information in a marriage license. Here is a sampling.


 * Sister of William Bentley of Malpas
 * Step daughter of James Shaw
 * Charles was deaf and dumb
 * Daughter-in-law of Francis Cotterel
 * Cartwright otherwise Standish