But who was the bride?
Deborah King has sent me a rather unusual copy of a marriage register entry that she discovered whilst looking for a marriage for Charles Guy in 1851. Deborah already knew the first name of the bride was Sarah, but she was bemused to see the bride’s name in the copy of the marriage register on Ancestry was Caroline Charlotte Webb. Initially confused, when Deborah looked closely, she could see that the register was actually signed by Sarah Roberts Whitby, but the bride’s name in the entry was clearly Caroline Charlotte Webb. Like all things family history related, it’s only by looking at the small details that we can find a possible explanation for what’s happened here. The next entry in the register, for another wedding on the same day, was for Caroline Charlotte Webb, who married John Hack. After consulting ex-Deputy Registrar Antony Marr on the matter, Antony informed me that the entry could have been corrected by the parties at the time, but doesn’t appear to have been, and there is no process for getting the entry changed now. Curiosity got the better of me and I ordered the certificate myself and interestingly, the copy sent from the GRO shows the actual correct bride’s name of Sarah Roberts Whitby. With this being a church marriage, there would have been two registers completed: one kept for the church and one that goes to the superintendent registrar when full. We can only presume that the vicar or parish clerk had prefilled the marriage register in advance and made a simple error that no-one picked up on during the wedding. They got it right in the one for the Superintendent Registrar, which would be used for the quarterly return, but wrong in the church register. Another interesting anomaly that was solved by ordering the marriage certificate and consulting civil registration expert Antony Marr.
If you get the opportunity, I can highly recommend watching Antony Marr’s extremely informative talk on civil registration, a ‘must’ view for all family historians. Details can be found at www.chalfontresearch. co.uk
The marriage
