ENG-LIVERPOOL-L Archives

From: "Duncan Smith" <>
Subject: Re - Parish Church vs GRO Record
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 11:38:32 +0100

Cynthia,

You asked ... "I have a GRO marriage certificate and wonder if a Parish Church record would give me any more information on bride and groom? The marriage took place at St. Nicholas Church in Liverpool" ...

The Parish Register is very unlikely to give you any different information about your ancestor's marriage, as the GRO copy should be a transcription of the Parish Register entry. On the other hand, as you are talking about St Nicholas Church, the Liverpool Register Office will hold copies of these weddings, and in my experience if you order marriage certificates from Cotton Street (as opposed to the GRO at Southport) you can sometimes get lucky and receive a copy of the original Register Office entry containing the spouses and witnesses actual signatures, as opposed to the transcriptions (in another hand) found on GRO copies.

Only Liverpool and some larger Register Offices have the facility to photocopy the original Register Office copy onto a Marriage certificate pro-forma, and in some cases you will find that even then, you do not get your ancestor's original signatures, but I have been lucky on a number of occasions, and been sent a certificate on which my ancestor's signatures are clearly evident.

The Liverpool R.O. can be rather slower than the GRO online site, but if you find the marriage on Lancs BMD - perhaps using
http://www.ukBMD.org.uk/

and send in the downloadable pro-forma that they use there, then it may speed up the process somewhat.

Duncan, Dundee

This thread:

• Re - Parish Church vs GRO Record by "Duncan Smith" <>