In thinking I may not actually be married

[Firef1y72]

Is there anyone with some legal knowledge that can help me :
I'm trying to get a copy of my marriage certificate so I can get a passport. Filled in all the info online and today got an email saying there is no record of the marriage (yes I have got all the details right).

Does this mean (please, please, please) that I am not (and never have been) legally married?

we got married in the US. When we came back I was surprised that no central institution needed to see the certificate. Banks etc if I wanted my name changed, but government as it were not interested.
So yep - probably just the church has it.

*It used to be the case that only CofE (and then only in churches, unless you had a special licence), Quakers, and Jews could legally marry without recourse to a civil ceremony

again, no.*

Well, it is true, but it stopped being the case in 1837.

The GRO only gets marriage details to add to their index when the volume is full. The local register office may be able to help, but I would contact the church directly.

Ellmau - but that is my point, the change in law the pp was referring to happened in 1980's or 1990's, and the change you are referring to happened enarly 200 years ago!

In Scotland, you still need to register even a church wedding beforehand at the local registry office and then make sure that the official form gets back to them to be registered within 3 days (although that doesn't need to be handed in by the happy couple as they may well be off on their honeymoon ) - but you say it was an Anglican, so I assume that you were married in England.

There may well be an error on the computerised search records of the GRO. I have used the findmypast website which got its information from the GRO and I have found several transcription errors - eg quinton spelt ruinton. Therefore it could come back as no record but really the record has been recorded incorrectly - it is only as good as the person inputting into the system.

Dont worry about it, it seems my whole family doesnt exist on line

Sorry to derail but what happens if you are married outside the uk.
I was and I’ve never had to register it anywhere.

Bluthbanana - if your aunt doesn't divorce her ex, he will have a claim to her estate when she dies, as you can't completely disinherit under Scots Law. The spouse and offspring have a right to a certain percentage of the "movable estate".

walkerlaird.co.uk/children-legal-rights/

If married abroad, you need to apply to the country you were married in for the paperwork. There's no provision under UK law for overseas marriages to be registered here in any way.

Try freebmd online for the registry reference and then reapply using that. If not on the register which the church should have submitted, then try the parish records to see if the entry made was transcribed correctly. Hopefully everything will come up blank and you can walk away from this man without divorce.

I’ve got all my paperwork, I’m just guessing it wouldn’t show up on any searches etc.

prettybird I know. Her take is that they have no kids to inherit it, and she’ll be dead so it’s not her problem if he inherits whatever is left. Honestly, everyone has tried to get through to her but there is no convincing her that divorcing him is worth it. She’d rather live peacefully and spend her money.

All it means is that there isn’t a copy available in the records online. I’ve had this recently for my birth certificate.
Just submit the full request for a copy of the marriage certificate with gov.uk and they’ll do the full search at their end and send you a copy.

Bluthbanana - fair enough .

I suppose she could a) make sure that most of her estate is in property (which she can leave to whoever she wants) and b) instruct the executor to blow any remaining cash on the most fabulous "Fuck You" funeral and purvey, as that comes out of the estate

I can search on Ancestry for you if you like, just send a PM. It’s easier to search on there if the details are slightly wrong, such as with transcription errors.

I got marrie din the usa had to provide my mariage certificate to change my passport but nothing else-also wouldnt be listed here

I was the Parish Administrator at our church for over 25 years and looked after the records. When I started the registers were printed with spaces for, I think, 250 marriages. There are always two copies of the registers, plus the certificate book. When the 250 spaces were filled we had to send one book off to the Registrar of Births, Marriages, etc, we kept the other one which eventually was sent to the County Archives. However, about ten years ago the number of entries in the registers was reduced because some churches were performing so few weddings and therefore the registers were taking decades to fill.

I would think it is more than likely that this is why there is no record of your marriage at the higher level, but the church in question should be able to help.

Can you let us know what denomination the church was? As in, Catholic, church of England, Methodist, Baptist. Sorry if you've already said, I couldn't see it. But that would really help.

OP said it was Anglican.

@steppemum thanks, but I've got an LLB and LLM, and the latter was a research masters in comparative family law. I am in no need of your assistance, kindly meant as I'm sure it was. I simply stated that at one point the pp's claim was almost right, but that it wasn't the law any more, and then provided a link to the relevant legal guidance. I didn't go into it any further, because I didn't see any need to belittle the pp.

Incidentally, the change in the law you recall being reported 'at some point in the 80s or 90s' is the Marriages Act 1994.

*Marriage Act 1994, my apologies.

Definitely check with the church.

I had to look for my baptism certificate, my parents had written my name down strangely so I wouldn’t have found it other than a church staff person actually looking through papers from the months after I was born.

Imagine my name is Sarah Mary Smith but some relatives call me Mimi as a nickname. They had me down as Sarah M.M. Smith.