Illegal Marriage

[Kit]

I was just searching through FMP's new Staffordshire marriages PRs and found an illegal marriage for one of my relatives, Emma Eastwood. I can not find another marriage previously for her or her husband and banns were called.

What reason could it be for it to be an illegal marriage?

FMP Marriage

FMP Banns

Am off to bed soon, so don't think I'm ignoring any responses.

[Merry]

Looking at the banns register, banns only seem to have been called once and that on the same date as the marriage. Banns have to be called for three Sundays within a three month period before the wedding.

[Kit]

That makes sense.

It must have been realised afterwards as the marriage is on FreeBMD and I would have thought it wouldn't have been registered if it was realised at the time it was illegal.

[Merry]

Interesting. The marriage was Oct 1st and the vicar would have done his return to the GRO for the Oct-Dec Q at the beginning of January, so that suggests at the time he sent the records to the GRO no one had noticed anything. Of course, the vicar wouldn't have been looking at the bans register when he filled in his GRO return.

I wonder if the couple concerned were aware! Maybe not.

I was looking at the GRO entry again and noted Samuel Wildigg doesn't show up on Ancestry's version. Wondering if there was any significance in this, I did a bit more digging and discovered (nothing to do with the illegal marriage!) that of the 170 names beginning with Wil* on that GRO page, ancestry only has one of them in it's index!! They only have five Wil* marriage entries at all for that Q, whilst FreeBMD has over 1500!

I searched a few of the rarer names from Samuel Wildigg's page to see if they came up with the wrong year or something, but didn't find them lurking elsewhere. So, yet another reason not to use Ancestry's GRO records.

[kiterunner]

Originally Posted by Merry

Interesting. The marriage was Oct 1st and the vicar would have done his return to the GRO for the Oct-Dec Q at the beginning of January, so that suggests at the time he sent the records to the GRO no one had noticed anything. Of course, the vicar wouldn't have been looking at the bans register when he filled in his GRO return.

Family Tree magazine recently featured this marriage, which appears twice in the register and in the GRO index:
1880 marriage George Lansbury and Elizabeth Jane Brine


Same couple same date but on the wrong page

The second one is indexed as 1885 because of where it appears in the book. If only Tower Hamlets BMD was still working, we would be able to see if it was indexed twice by the local register office too.

But anyway, I thought it was the local register office who sent copies to the GRO, not the vicar? And the marriage entry (the one that this thread is about) would presumably have already been copied out into the register office copy of the book before they realised it was illegal, so I guess it is the same in the local register office copy, written in and crossed out.

[kiterunner]

Originally Posted by Merry

I was looking at the GRO entry again and noted Samuel Wildigg doesn't show up on Ancestry's version. Wondering if there was any significance in this, I did a bit more digging and discovered (nothing to do with the illegal marriage!) that of the 170 names beginning with Wil* on that GRO page, ancestry only has one of them in it's index!! They only have five Wil* marriage entries at all for that Q, whilst FreeBMD has over 1500!

I searched a few of the rarer names from Samuel Wildigg's page to see if they came up with the wrong year or something, but didn't find them lurking elsewhere. So, yet another reason not to use Ancestry's GRO records.

Maybe FreeBMD have only recently indexed those entries? Ancestry's copy of the FreeBMD database is a little bit behind FreeBMD's.

[Merry]

But anyway, I thought it was the local register office who sent copies to the GRO, not the vicar? And the marriage entry (the one that this thread is about) would presumably have already been copied out into the register office copy of the book before they realised it was illegal, so I guess it is the same in the local register office copy, written in and crossed out

Accoring to the book "A Comedy of Errors" all about the GRO systems, the GRO marriage records are comprised of records direct from the vicar for all C of E marriages and from the registrar for all registrar attended or register office marriages.

Yes, the local registrar would have their copy from before it was decided the marriage was illegal, but they might not have been told it was illegal, depending on how that information came about, so we don't know if their copy has the same annotation.

[kiterunner]

Right. I would love to get a copy of that book! But maybe the vicar filled in the GRO book at the same time as the local register office one?

As for ancestry's copy of the FreeBMD database missing this marriage, looking at the old FreeBMD stats on the Wayback Machine, the last quarter of 1843 marriages were incomplete in October 2011, so must have been filled in since then:
https://web.archive.org/web/20111105...rogressM.shtml

[Merry]

I've just got the book out to check I'm right and it turns out we are both at least right in part!

"A short while after the end of each quarter the clergy, the Jewish congregations, Quaker meetings and district registrars were required to make copies of all marriages recorded in that prior quarter and to send them to the Superintendent Registrar for the district"

The Superintendent Registrar then forwarded the whole lot to the GRO for indexing. The sheets of paper were loose forms with four marriages to a side up to and including 1851 and two to a side after that.

So it was the superintendent registrar who was finally responsible for sending on the sheets, but the info was written by the vicar. Of course everyone signed declarations to say everything was a true copy etc, but lots of errors occurred.

[Merry]

But maybe the vicar filled in the GRO book at the same time as the local register office one?

Yes, he might well have done.

There are two books (very similar titles). A lot of the content is out of date to some extent because there's a lot of info regarding finding the other party to a marriage etc etc from before internet sites enabled us to search easily, but still very interesting to understand some of the background. I used to feel very well up on it all, but realise I've forgotten quite a bit now!

The first book is "A Comedy of Errors or The Marriage Records of England and Wales 1837-1899" ISBN 0-473-05581-3

Maybe you could get it via your library?