Genealogy Chat

Hi Does anyone know if they had marriage announcements between 1916 ans 1923 like we do today? If they did are they most likely to be parish anouncements and can you fin records of these online? Kimberley

Do you mean in the parish magazine or local paper....that sort of thing?? I doubt you would find anything online, unless you were very lucky. Posh people put personal announcements in The Times newspaper, but those ore the only online ones I have found! Merry

I was thinking of parish magazines and notices. Don't think my family were posh or rich enough to put anything in the Times (although I'm working on proving this wrong!!). Thanks anyway. Guess I'll have to order the cerificates. K

If you know the marriage was in a particular parish, the parish record entry will be exactly like a certificate and can be copied quite reasonably at the record office that holds the fiche.

Banns registers are at county records offices. Parish magazines might exist somewhere - I have the entries of my grandparents' marriage and my mother's christening from the parish mag as my grandmother kept them. Local newspapers might have announcements, and these could be at the county records office or the library service, or a local history centre. But not everyone chooses to announce their marriage in a newspaper, and they might have married by licence. nell

Thank you for all the replies. I do know the parishes that the marriages took place and might go have a look at the local record when I'm next at home (about 2/3 weeks). K

Years ago I was scrubbing around in a scruffy little Local Archives, looking at newspapers and not getting very far. While I was doing this, someone came in and started dumping cardboard boxes all over the floor, and the harrassed Archivist was trying to open them and see what was in them. They were in my way and every time I got up I banged my leg against the box. Looking into the box I saw that they were a collection of Parish Magizines from the mid-1800s. I idly opened one - and fell on the floor with excitement! They were for a Church I had never heard of, but there were my relatives, for whom I had been looking for many years. There was 37 years-worth of Parish Mags and the contents included not just births and baptisms, engagements and marriages, deaths, funerals and obituaries, but 'Letters from our Cousins in foreign parts'. The letters included a great long screed from one of my rellies who went to Kentucky in 1843, along with his brother, his brother-in-law and their assorted wives and families. It seemed that the Chapel had paid for their passage and there was a lot of praising the Lord and the Congregation for their goodness etc. He had also seen someone else from the village, farming the next farm to his in Kentucky and passed on his good wishes to HIS family. It took me five weeks of constant attendance to read through this lot - the Archivist HATED me. Sadly, they didnt have a photocopier in those days but I might try and track them down sometime soon! Olde Crone

Olde Crone, I too love parish magazines if I can get hold of them. I have read funeral reports which list principal mourners as grandchildren, nephews and nieces etc and even saw a couple of wedding reports, which itemised all the gifts received and from whom. Short obituaries when people died - one had been the church cleaner for 30 years.! I have in my possession 3 volumes of a parish magazine from the 1890s - the monthly copies for each year were bound together to create an annual. What is rather ironic is that they belonged to my great-great aunt Esther, who could neither read nor write! Jay