Dorset Marriages
Discover if your ancestor married in the British county of Dorset. Search more than 675,000 marriage records from Dorset to find your ancestor’s parish, spouse’s name and marriage date. This collection is published in partnership with the Family History Federation.
Learn about these records
This collection has been created from transcripts provided by FamilySearch, Dorset Family History Society, and Somerset and Dorset Family History Society. The transcripts have been created from information found in the original parish records. A small number of records will also provide you with an image. The information contained in the transcripts can vary but most will include the following details:
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Name
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Spouse’s name
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Marriage date
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Parish
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Occupation
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Spouse’s parish and occupation
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Married by banns or by licence
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Names of witnesses
Images
The records with images were provided by The National Archives and created by the College of Arms, the official heraldic authority for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and much of the Commonwealth including Australia and New Zealand. The records will provide you with details found in the original parish register.
There are over 675,000 records in this collection taken from the marriage registers of 384 churches, chapels and Quaker Meetings. These transcriptions are due to the hard work of the volunteers of the Dorset Family History Society, Dorset and Somerset Family History Society and FamilySearch.
Before the introduction of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in 1837 all such events were recorded in the local parish. Parish records generally begin from 1538 after the Church of England mandated the keeping of parish registers in 1537. Baptisms, marriages and burials were all recorded in a single volume until 1774, when the law changed to require a separate marriage register and another one for banns (or proclamations of an intent to marry). Standardized forms for these registers appeared in 1812.
Other religious denominations, with the exception of the Quakers and Jews, often registered these events in their local Church of England parish even after the Toleration Act of 1689. Although, between 1754 and 1837, it was illegal to marry anywhere other than a Church of England parish.
Dorset is a rural county in the south west of England, bordering the English Channel. On the west, it borders Devon. Somerset is to the north west, Wiltshire to the north east and Hampshire to the east.