Genealogy Chat

Could somebody PLEASE tell me ?
Actual signatures (or Xs) of couples & witnesses married in church can sometimes be photocopied from the parish registers held either in the church or county records office.

However with registry office marriages, if you send for a marriage cert from the General Records Office, you only receive a copy which DOES NOT contain the actual signatures.

Is it possible to obtain a copy containing their actual signatures, from the actual registry office involved ? or anywhere else ?

(also, when did registry office marriages start ?)

THANK YOU in advance, Alan.

Not all registry offices provide historical copies of their records and will advise that you get your copies from the GRO

It may be worth your while to contact the relevant office to ask.

Hello PigletsPal,
THANK YOU for your prompt reply.
Kind regards, Alan.

As far as I know Register Office marriages started at the same time as civil registration - 1837.

Kath. x

Hello KathleenBell,
THANK YOU for the information.
Kind regards, Alan.

A number of points.
Firstly A Registry Office is a place where Land is Registered. Births, Deaths, Marriages and Civil Partnerships are Registered at a Register Office. Pedantic I know, but registrars get upset by incorrect designations.
Secondly, in England and Wales all civil registrations started on 01 July 1837
Thirdly, all Register Offices hold the originals of all registrations which took place in their district in the original registers (although districts may have combined and they may be held in a central depository in that district)
So
where a certificate is hand written it will have been copied from the original by someone at the Register Office, however many ROs are now scanning entries and if this is the case then it will be a scan of the original.
Finally. In the future family historians will not be so lucky as now almost everything is held on computer, including RO marriages and most certificates will be computer generated and not produced from the actual registers.

The GRO only ever has a copy of the original Register Office entry. The wording of a typical GRO cert says "Certified to be a true copy of an entry in the certified copy of a register of marriages in the Registration District of XYZ"

Whereas, a certificate issued by the original RO states "Certified to be a true copy of an entry in a register in my custody"

I'm sure it is possible to receive a scan of the original but it is not the case with any of the RO wedding certs I have in my possession. All are either handwritten or typed at the time of issue.

Incidentally, the wording on my own marriage cert which we did sign at the time of the wedding states "I (minister) .... do hereby certify that this is a true copy of the entry No xx in the Register Book of Marriages of the above named building.

Does anyone have a cert issued at the time of the wedding at a RO,, what does it say on that and does it have actual signatures?

PS there is a road sign in Harrogate directing you to the "Registry Office" Perhaps someone needs to tell the registrar.....!

Our certificate which was issued in the seventies at Chelmsford RO is entirely written and signed by the registrar. It says "Certified to be a true copy of an entry of a register in my custody,"

Firstly I would like to THANK all of you who have replied. I have taken all your points on board.

It would seem that a certificate containing a copy of original signatures MIGHT be obtained from the ORIGINAL R O, but it's still UNSURE.
HAS ANYBODY GOT ONE who can confirm this ??

Just as an illustration of the usefulness of ORIGINAL SIGNATURES (even though this was a church wedding) :-
My cousin holds an ORIGINAL copy from 1859 of our Gt Grandparent's marriage document. On this it says "The above is a true Extract from the Register Book of Marriages of the said District Church". All this written in the ONE HAND (inc 4 signatures).

On the reverse are written some very useful notes about the family.
We wondered WHO had written these notes.
By comparing these notes with the ORIGINAL signatures copied from the CHURCH PARISH REGISTER, we were able to determine that it was definitely our Gt Grandfather's own handwriting.

Neither my recent copy of their marriage cert from the GRO, nor my cousin's original copy from 1859, gave us the information which we were after !!

Birmingham is the only local office that will routinely send images of their original BMD regos, so far as I'm aware.

Like others, we married in a RO. And have a handwritten copy.

Years later, an alteration needed to be made. After obtaining formal authorisation from the GRO we took a trip back to the RO. The original register was brought out. After the alteration was made in the margin (and signed by both of us) we were given a photocopy.

So we have a handwritten copy (with our signatures written by the Registrar), and a photocopy of the revised record (obviously with our own signatures)

But providing us with a photocopy is most likely an exception.

Also, any 'margin alterations' like ours will never be found on copies obtained from the GRO.

Hello mgnv and Inky1,
THANK YOU both for your replies.
Kind regards, Alan.

Hello Kuros,
THANK YOU for that information.
Kind Regards, Alan.