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In the 1860s, only the C of E, jews and quakers were authorized to keep official marr regos. They made an exact copy of the entry, and sent that to the local district office who also kept a copy of each church's rego. At the end of each quarter, a further copy was made by the local office (actually copies of all the BMDs in their district) and these were sent to the GRO in London (later Southport). Completed regos (500 entries) were sent to the local office to check against their copy, then forwarded for deposit in some archive, usually the county records office.

If a non-conformist marr took place, the registrar would have to attend, so that the couple could sign his official rego, and their entry would appear there mixed in with all the rego office marrs - although their entry would say it took place in the Wesleyan Methodist Church on Deansgate or whatever. Both the priest and the registrar would sign such marr entries. Most non-conformist could be authorized to keep official marr regos from 1898 on, but RCs only from the 1980s (I think).
Some of these churches did keep their own unofficial regos, and these could really contain anything. Most of the few I've seen just had the official details, but I did see one RC marr entry from East Lancs that had quite a bit of extra info. The priest had gone back and added a couple of later kids to the entry, and the info they'd all now moved to Sheffield.

Marriage certificates may indeed be copies of the Parish Register - surely Sean's query was whether they are complete copies or just selective copies of the register.

Also remember that as soon as anything is copied extra mistakes can creep in.

ahhh i see
thanx

Marriage certs are copies of the Parish Register

I just looked at one of mine from 1863 and the address is just the street name no number...but there is another on that page (London marriages) that has the street numbers so as I said it would depend on what was given

No it would be the same as the marriage cert....mothers are never mentioned on an English/Welsh marriage cert

Full address is only shown if they gave it

Of course the mothers could have been a witness but it would only show her name not her relationship

Hi
would a parish church hold more information of a marriage than a marriage certificate.like the brides mother etc and full address of that time(1860s).

or is this a stupid question..?
cheers
sean