Daisy Goddard
Researcher
Mon Apr 28 2025
•
< 5 minutes read
Marriage records are important for family history research, as they help you to trace connections and uncover important details about your ancestors' lives. After finding a marriage record online, you may be able to order a physical copy of the marriage certificate.
What information do I need to find a marriage certificate?
Before searching online marriage records, it’s useful to gather all the information you know – the more detail you have, the easier your search will be.
Some key facts to identify are:
- Both spouses’ full names – including the wife’s maiden name
- The year of the marriage
- A location (whether that’s a country, county or parish)
- Religious denomination (if it was recorded by church rather than government administrators)
There’s no need to worry if you don’t have all of these details – you may be able to find the record you’re looking for with just a name and a date.
Where can I find marriage records?
Lots of British and Irish marriage records have been digitised and are available to search online from the comfort of your home. If you’re wondering where to find marriage records for your ancestors, look no further than a family history website like Findmypast.
Civil marriage records
In the UK, marriages have been recorded by the government since 1837. These records are held by the General Register Office (GRO). The indexes are searchable online on genealogy sites.
Church marriage records
Church marriage records, on the other hand, go back as far as the 16th century. The physical copies of these records are held mostly by local archives and churches, but you can access them easily online.
How to search marriage records
To search marriage records online, input all the information you know into the search form – spouses' names, the location and the approximate date of the union. Once you’ve hit ‘search’, you can narrow down your results by adding more detail or tweaking the information you’ve already added.
To find the marriage record that you’re looking for, be sure to:
- Try alternate name spellings, as the record may contain spelling errors.
- Check both civil and church records. Some marriages were only recorded in parish registers, so won’t show up in civil marriage record collections.
- Broaden your search. If there are no relevant results for a particular town or village, try widening your search to the county level. The marriage may have been recorded in a different district or parish than you expected.
Ordering a marriage certificate
You can order a physical copy of a British marriage certificate from the General Register Office (GRO).
A marriage certificate may contain more information than is featured on the digitised record. Alternatively, if the record you’re after isn’t available online, you may have more luck with the GRO.
To order a marriage certificate, you’ll need to provide the GRO with the full names of both spouses, as well as the location and date of their marriage. If you know it, the GRO index reference number will help to locate the record you’re looking for.
You’ll be charged a fee for the marriage certificate. Once the document is processed, it will be sent to you.
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