Our aim is to eventually cover all marriages which took place in the pre-1974 county of Lancashire since 1837, including those in areas which have since been transferred to adjacent counties.
These records are now held at many separate register offices:
For full details of all the churches, chapels and register offices included in the database so far, see the Coverage of the Marriage Indexes page, which also shows the years for which the records have been indexed. Because there are separate sets of records for each place of marriage, the dates covered will vary. More information will be continually added to the database, and the latest additions will be noted on the Updates page.
From the indexes, you can find out:
(a) The Names of the bride and groom, as shown in the registers. Sometimes a name may be spelled two or more different ways on the same register entry, in which case each variant is separately indexed. This same also applies to double-barrelled names, so that 'Jeffrey Johnson Smith' would normally appear as 'Smith, Jeffrey J.' and 'Johnson Smith, Jeffrey'.
(b) The Year in which the marriage took place. In some cases only a range of up to five years is indicated at present because of the way in which the indexes were originally compiled, but exact years will be provided wherever possible.
(c) The Church, Chapel or Registrar's District where the marriage was solemnised. Until 1898 only Church of England, Jewish and Quaker places of worship were entitled to maintain their own marriage registers. All other non-conformist and Roman Catholic marriages had to be conducted in the presence of a registrar, and are therefore listed as 'Civil Marriages', together with all those conducted at the local register office. After 1898 non-conformist and Roman Catholic churches were allowed to keep their own registers and celebrate their own marriages, and so from that date the records for marriage are much more fragmented.
(d) The Register Office which now holds the records. There have been a large number of boundary changes between districts since the start of registration in 1837, and as a result many records have been moved around. The codes shown for the offices are as follows:
- BL = Blackpool
- BN = Blackburn
- BO = Bolton
- BU = Burnley
- BY = Bury
- FE = Fleetwood & Fylde
- HN = Hyndburn
- LL = Liverpool
- MR = Manchester
- OM = Oldham
- PN = Preston
- PT = Prescot
- RE = Rochdale
- RI = Ribble Valley
- SD = Salford
- SS - South Sefton
- TR = Trafford (based at Sale)
- WL = Lancashire West
- WN = Wigan & Leigh
(e) The Reference Number for the marriage entry, which can be used to order the marriage certificate, and which should be identical for the bride and groom. Please note that this is only applicable at the register office which holds the records, and is of no use anywhere else.
Please bear in mind that until recently the main purpose of these indexes was to supply certified copies of entries in registers. They were therefore written to help the registrar find an entry on information supplied by the applicant for the certificate. Consequently, they do not always provide information in an ideal form for family historians.
If you find an entry you are interested in, it is possible to order a marriage certificate, which is a copy of the full entry from the original register. An order form may be accessed by clicking on the reference which appears against each entry in the search results. This should be printed and sent to the appropriate register office.
Applications for certified copies of the marriage entries should be made to:
| Office | Address | Payments to: | Credit Cards |
| BL | Superintendent Registrar The Register Office South King Street Blackpool FY1 4AX UK |
Blackpool Borough Council | Yes |
| BN | Superintendent Registrar Register Office King Georges Hall Northgate Blackburn BB2 1AA UK |
Superintendent Registrar | No |
| BO | Bolton Register Office Mere Hall Merehall Street Bolton BL1 2QT UK |
Bolton MBC | Yes |
| BU | Lancashire Registration District Certificate Services Quayside Court Chain Caul Way Preston PR2 2ZP UK |
Lancashire County Council | Yes |
| BY | Bury Register Office Town Hall Manchester Road Bury BL9 0SW UK |
Bury MBC | Yes |
| CY | Lancashire Registration District Certificate Services Quayside Court Chain Caul Way Preston PR2 2ZP UK |
Lancashire County Council | Yes |
| FE | Lancashire Registration District Certificate Services Quayside Court Chain Caul Way Preston PR2 2ZP UK |
Lancashire County Council | Yes |
| HN | Lancashire Registration District Certificate Services Quayside Court Chain Caul Way Preston PR2 2ZP UK |
Lancashire County Council | Yes |
| LL | Liverpool City Council The Register Office The Cotton Exchange Old Hall Street LIVERPOOL L3 9UF UK |
Liverpool City Council | Yes |
| MR | Superintendent Registrar Manchester Register Office Heron House 47 Lloyd Street MANCHESTER M2 5LE UK |
Manchester City Council | Yes |
| OK | Register Office Greetby Buildings Derby Street ORMSKIRK L39 2BS UK |
Lancashire County Council | Yes |
| OM | Superintendent Registrar Oldham Register Office Chadderton Town Hall Middleton Road Chadderton Oldham OL9 6PP UK |
Oldham MBC | No |
| PN | Lancashire Registration District Certificate Services Quayside Court Chain Caul Way Preston PR2 2ZP UK |
Lancashire County Council | Yes |
| PT | Superintendent Registrar Prescot Register Office Council Offices High Street Prescot L34 3LH UK |
Knowsley Borough Council | No |
| RE | Superintendent Registrar Register Office Town Hall The Esplanade Rochdale OL16 1AB UK |
Rochdale MBC | Yes |
| RI | Lancashire Registration District Certificate Services Quayside Court Chain Caul Way Preston PR2 2ZP UK |
Lancashire County Council | Yes |
| SD | Superintendent Registrar Salford Register Office Unity House Salford Civic Centre Chorley Road Swinton SALFORD M27 5AW UK |
City of Salford | Yes |
| SS | The Register Office Town Hall Great Georges Road Waterloo L22 1RB UK |
Superintendent Registrar | No |
| TR | Trafford Register Office Sale Town Hall Sale Waterside Sale Cheshire M33 7ZF UK |
Trafford M.B.C. | Yes |
| WL | Lancashire Registration District Certificate Services Quayside Court Chain Caul Way Preston PR2 2ZP UK |
Lancashire County Council | Yes |
| WN | Superintendent Registrar Wigan & Leigh Register Office Town Hall Library Street Wigan WN1 1YD UK |
Wigan Council | No |
Family historians are requested to apply for certificates by post and not call casually at the Register Office. Whilst staff will always try to help, they do have other statutory duties to carry out every day and are often very busy with current births, deaths and marriages. Postal applications are normally dealt with promptly as they are received.
You may also request a certificate for a marriage which you believe to have been registered in a particular district but for which the registers have not yet been indexed by LancashireBMD. Write to the register office concerned quoting:
Please note that the large number of manuscript index books which may need to be searched (particularly in urban areas) if the place of marriage is not known may mean that the register office is unable to undertake an extensive search beyond the registers for the most popular churches and register offices in their area. This is the principal reason why the LancashireBMD project concentrates so greatly on indexing marriage registers.
A stamped addressed envelope will help get the certificate back to you more quickly. Applications sent from outside the UK should enclose two International Reply Coupons with their self-addressed envelope instead of stamps.
The fee for each certificate is £7.00 and should be sent with the application. Cheques should be crossed "/&Co/". Do Not Send Cash.
Applicants wishing to pay by credit card should include in their applications the relevant details, i.e. type of card, name of cardholder, card number and date of expiry. Please note that some Register Offices apply a surcharge of up to £1.00 for credit card payment.
A marriage certificate issued in England and Wales normally contains the following information for both bride and groom:
Original records of births, marriages and deaths held at register offices in England and Wales are not open to the public, and information can only be released in the form of certificates issued by the registrars.
However, for marriages in the Church of England, a duplicate set of records exists, to which the public does have free access. These registers were normally retained by the church, and those for Lancashire have often found their way into one of the county's record offices. Registers may also be found on microfilm at local libraries or family history centres.
The national indexes of marriages in England and Wales (latterly at The Family Records Centre and previously at St. Catherine's House or Somerset House but now widely available via the internet) list all those whose marriage was registered in each quarter year from 1837. The indexes show, for both bride and groom, the name of the person, the spouse's surname (from 1912 only), the name of the registration district (as it existed when the marriage was registered), and a volume and page number, which is unique to the General Register Office and of no use to local registrars.
Every three months since July 1837, registrars and church officials recognised as "authorised persons" have been required to send copies of their marriage register entries to the General Register Office. For various reasons, sometimes entries were missed, or details were copied incorrectly from the register. Further errors and omissions have occurred when the original manuscript indexes were used to produce typescript copies. This will usually explain differences between certificates ordered from the GRO and those obtained from local register offices. Generally speaking, registers and indexes held by the local offices are less prone to error and omission, and should therefore be more accurate than those at the GRO.
A quick glance through the indexes reveals some unusual spellings of common names, and this often explains why a marriage can be hard to find. In the early days of registration, and because of the high level of illiteracy, the bride and groom told their name to the vicar or registrar, who would spell it as he heard it. If the couple could not read or write, they would not know whether the names were being spelled consistently. For example, people looking for the Muir family may not think to look under 'Mewr', or 'Raleigh' under 'Rolli', and a degree of lateral thinking may be required.
To help overcome this problem the search pages have the ability to try to list names that sound similar but are spelled differently. Hint and tips about getting the best from the search of the indexes on this web site are available here.
If you are satisfied that a name does not appear in the indexes, then your ancestor may have travelled outside the area to be married. It was not unusual for a couple to travel several miles from their usual home to marry at a church used by their parents or other relations. The GRO indexes may be helpful in locating where they married, but please remember that a lot of records have moved around due to boundary changes between districts.
It is possible that the marriage may have taken place later than you expect. It was not unknown for a couple to marry when the bride was pregnant or after the birth of one or more children. Sometimes records, such as family bibles, may show an earlier marriage date which is intended to conceal the circumstances of these earlier births.
Although every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of these indexes, it is possible that an occasional mistake or omission can occur. If you think you have found an error then please click here to send an e-mail to the webmaster giving full details of the entry concerned including reference and year, preferably by cutting and pasting the full search result details into your message.