Staffordshire Marriages

Transcript

Each record comprises a transcript and black and white image of the original register. The amount of information listed varies, but the records usually include a combination of the following information about your ancestor:

• First name(s)

• Last name

• Age

• Spouse’s age

• Marriage year

• Marriage date

• Place

• Denomination

• Spouse’s first name(s)

• Spouse’s last name

• Father’s name

• Spouse’s father’s name

• County

• Country

Images

The images may provide further details, including:

• Marital status

• Spouse’s marital status

• Occupation

• Spouse’s occupation

• Residence

• Spouse’s residence

• Witness names

• Father’s occupation

• Spouse’s father’s occupation

• Officiating minister

• Banns or Licence

The record set comprises 905,599 records from almost 276 parishes in Staffordshire, England.

These records date from 1538 to 1900.

Note: a number of the earlier records are in Latin.

Also note that some of the images may show a black mark followed by the words ‘his mark’ or ‘her mark’ in the records of those who were unable to write.

Colour digital images created from paper originals will be added in due course, expanding the collection considerably so if you can't find your ancestor now there's a good chance they will be here soon.

Staffordshire Parish Register Collection

These records belong to the Staffordshire collection, a unique set of records spanning baptisms, banns, marriages and burials, which provide details of the history of Staffordshire and its people.

Since its foundation, the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Archive Service has been responsible for the records of Staffordshire parishes. The very first deposit of records obtained by Staffordshire Record Office in 1947 was from the parish of Hamstall Ridware. Registers included in this collection are all held by the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Archive Service. Registers for those few Staffordshire parishes deposited with other archive services are not included in this collection.

The parish registers in this collection document the key events in the lives of the people of Staffordshire, including the city of Stoke-on-Trent and those parts of the historic county currently within the West Midlands conurbation.

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a county in the West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, West Midlands, Worcestershire and Shropshire. (If your ancestors’ records cannot be found in these records, you may be able to search for them in bordering counties.)

Stoke-on-Trent is the largest city in Staffordshire, and is administered independently from the rest of the county. Stafford is the county town of Staffordshire.

Parish records

In some of the earlier parish registers, baptisms, marriages and burials are all written in the same register and the images show all these together.

Parish registers are handwritten volumes, in which details of baptisms, banns, marriages and burials are recorded. In 1538, following the Church of England’s split with Rome, it was decreed that each parish priest must keep such a register. In 1754, separate marriage and banns registers were introduced in a standard printed portrait format, which remained in use until 1837, when civil registration began. A printed landscape formatted marriage register was introduced, which is still in use today.

Marriage records

Marriage records are an essential part of researching your family history. There are records where the parents of the bride and groom are listed, and these are often the key to finding out the names of the generation before.

Occasionally, ages of the couple may be listed as "full" or “of age” rather than as a figure. This was a customary way of noting that they were over the required age of 21. If the bride or groom was under the age of 21, “with consent of parents” is noted in the record.