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Guild of One-Name Studies

One-name studies, Genealogy

Is your surname here?

    • 2,435 members
    • 2,268 studies
    • 8,099 surnames

Marriage Locator

Cracking the code of the GRO Marriage Index

This service enables you to interpret the Marriage Index created by the General Register Office for England and Wales. By using it you can determine where your ancestors were married – not just which Registration District, but which church!

Family historians researching their ancestry in England and Wales can learn a lot from a marriage certificate, and the most common way to obtain one is to send for a GRO ‘copy certificate’, quoting the reference (year, quarter, volume number and page) from the GRO Marriage Index. GRO certificates are a paid service.

However, if you know the Anglican Church in which the marriage took place, and the Church Marriage Register has been deposited (as most have been) in the local County Record Office, then you can go to the appropriate Record Office and look at the actual Marriage Register that your ancestors signed. Or since many Church Registers are now available online, you may be able to find the entry – for free – via genealogical websites such as FamilySearch or the local Online Parish Clerk.

This is the purpose of this service: to deduce, from the year, quarter, volume number and page that you have acquired from the GRO indexes, where the marriage took place.

Start your Search here:

(1837 - 1945)
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The Marriage Locator Database currently contains 724,222 marriage-locator points (of which 391,027 are ‘cardinal points’) in 1,431 Registration Districts.

This is still a work in progress, and not all the data needed for all marriages is yet available. New data is continually being added. Read about the Principles of the Marriage Locator service.

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Other Guild Websites

You may find our other Guild websites of interest:

  • Members’ Websites Program
  • Surname Cloud
  • Guild Members’ records on FamilySearch
  • Guild Marriage Locator

Contact Us

Email: Guild General Contact
Postal address:
c/o Treasurer,
3 Windsor Gardens,
Herne Bay,
Kent, CT6 8FE. UK.
Call us free on:
UK: 0800 011 2182
US & Canada: 1-800-647-4100
Australia: 1800 305 184

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