England Marriages - FamilySearch Historical Records

England

What is in the Collection?
This index is an electronic index for the years 1538 to 1973.

This index is not complete for any particular place, region or time period. This collection may include information previously published in the International Genealogical Index or Vital Records Index collections.

For an outdated but very helpful listing of what parishes are included in this collection, see IGI Batch Numbers - British Isles and North America.

How Do I Search the Collection?
To search this collection by name: Fill in the requested information in the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the ancestors in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to look at several images and compare the information about the individuals listed in those images to your ancestors to make this determination.

As you are searching it is helpful to know such information as your ancestor’s given name and surname, some identifying information such as residence and age, and family relationships. Remember that there may be more than one person in the records with the same name as your ancestor and that your ancestor may have used nicknames or different names at different times.

Collection Content
For details about the contents of these records and help using them see the wiki article Marriages Vital Record Index Collections (FamilySearch Historical Records).

Tips to Keep in Mind
It may be necessary for you to conduct a number of searches by father's first name variant to identify all children in the index. Before 1812, both parish registers and Bishop's Transcripts vary in entry for baptism and manuscript entries may contain abbreviation like Wm. (William) Thos. (Thomas). Abbreviations, diminutions (Will, Tom) and variant spelling should all be attempted as search parameters and a single exact search may not return a result for these reasons. This is not a problem within the search engine but the original record data may be outside the possibility you are searching for and you may need to vary the search parameters to identify the data.

By searching on father's name and a wide year range in the parish it is often possible to locate the baptisms of siblings and if the baptismal register contains mother's first name this may reduce the number of results from a search. It is possible that more than one father with the same given name and surname in the parish may have children baptised in the same period.

In order to identify the source material for an entry in this index, locate the source film number. This can then be searched in the FamilySearch Catalog to obtain the relevant film. As FamilySearch wiki builds, you will find the source films referred to in tables for each parish. You may use the reference to the individual and event and the reference useful in conjunction with Photoduplication Services to find a single event or individual or examine the microfilm(s) indicated. Most archives in Britain also offer a similar service if you are resident there but unable to visit the archive where the record is deposited to conduct a personal search.

Duplicated results in a search may be caused by more than one record source on different source films. It is possible that variation in dates for an individual may be due to reading of banns, objections to marriage, marriage bonds, as well as the marriage entry itself. The search engine will return a number of results for events where more than one source is involved. There is also a possibility of human error both in the original record entries in source material and indexing.

Known Issues With This Collection
For a full list of all known issues associated with this collection see the attached article. If you encounter additional problems, please email them to [mailto:support@familysearch.org support@familysearch.org]. Please include the full path to the link and a description of the problem in your e-mail. Your assistance will help ensure that future reworks will be considered.

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image. Collection Citation:

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry):