Discover if your ancestors from England or Wales applied for a marriage licence between 1694 and 1850.
Discover if your ancestors from England or Wales applied for a marriage licence between 1694 and 1850.
Each record is a transcript.
You can order copies of the original documents from the Society of Genealogists for £15 including postage. Upon receipt of your payment, the Society of Genealogists will locate, copy and send you a copy of the record you are interested in within 14 days. See Useful Links & Resources.
The amount of information listed varies, but the Faculty Office Marriage Licences records usually include a combination of the following information about your ancestor:
Bride name
Groom name
Year
Licence date
Year of birth
There are 321,000 entries on the Faculty Office Marriage Licences register. These are couples, particularly Londoners, who intended to get married. Not all actually wed.
The Faculty Office was established after the Ecclesiastical Licences Act 1533, which transferred to the Archbishop of Canterbury the power to grant licences that had previously been dispensed by the Catholic Church.
The indexes have been compiled by volunteers for The Society of Genealogists and the original records are stored in Lambeth Palace.