GETTING MARRIED BY CHUWLÀFDWH

Leafing through my parents’ wedding album one day, I came across a folded piece of paper. Headed “Marriage Appointment”, it was a record of how my father had given notice at Coventry Register Office of his intended wedding there. It also warned that the wedding could only go ahead if a certificate had also been issued by the superintendent registrar for Rugby, which was the registration district where my mother was living at the time.

Such documents are valuable for adding detail to our knowledge of family weddings. But even when they have not survived, we can draw inferences from the records that have made it through the years. Even a certified copy of an entry in the marriage register – the genealogist’s familiar friend! – may yield useful clues.

The process of giving notice at a register office is one that dates back to the 1836 Marriage Act. This made it possible