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Genealogy

Got married abroad - how to ensure my future descendant can find info about me?

11 replies

chillichutneysarnie · 21/03/2021 15:18

This might be a bit weird but I'm thinking about when my future descendants might try to find info about my life. I got married abroad 5 yrs ago and took my husband's surname, but I don't think I can register this on any UK records. I also moved halfway across the UK recently.
I thought that the census would be a good way of having some info recorded but it didn't ask for my maiden name so that would be a dead end as well.
Any advice or should I just stop thinking about this 🤣

OP posts:
TeenMinusTests · 21/03/2021 15:26

On your children's birth certificates it will say your maiden name.
Though how they find your marriage if just in some random country I don't know.
(I have wondered about it too, it is one of the reasons I think getting married abroad is slightly unhelpful.)

chillichutneysarnie · 21/03/2021 18:40

Thank you, I didn't think of that so it's good to know

OP posts:
RaspberryCoulis · 23/03/2021 08:28

It will depend on the country you got married on, and the demand for digitising their records in the future.

Countries like the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand have lots of family history enthusiasts. Marriages there are recorded and even the more recent ones are searchable on Ancestry. I do a bit of transcribing for Ancestry when I have time and transcribe a lot of Spanish/South American marriages for places like Peru or Argentina.

But if there isn't the demand for access to marriage records from Bulgaria, or Cyprus, or Thailand so the companies like Ancestry or Find My Past aren't going to invest the time or effort into approaching governments, paying for access to records, digitising, indexing, transcribing.

There are clues you can leave though. Write up your life story at some point and leave it with a child. Or give your children your maiden name as a middle name (I have done this with two of mine, it's been done through the generations in my family for about 300 years and makes it easier to track descendants). Try to foster an interest in family history in your kids.

ConquestEmpireHungerPlague · 24/03/2021 09:37

Or give your children your maiden name as a middle name

I was going to suggest this too. You see it so much in family trees that it's really challenged my assumptions about what I imagined to be a passive acceptance of taking the husband/father's name. It's been invaluable to me for picking the right person out of a number of possibilities and sometimes for tracing a whole line.

Sengasox · 24/03/2021 09:40

This reply has been withdrawn

Message from MNHQ: This post has been withdrawn

chillichutneysarnie · 25/03/2021 08:43

Thanks for the ideas about the middle name and writing a life story at some point. If anyone does have any info on recording it here then I'd be interested to know. Thanks all for replying

OP posts:
littleredberries · 29/03/2021 09:21

@chillichutneysarnie

This might be a bit weird but I'm thinking about when my future descendants might try to find info about my life. I got married abroad 5 yrs ago and took my husband's surname, but I don't think I can register this on any UK records. I also moved halfway across the UK recently. I thought that the census would be a good way of having some info recorded but it didn't ask for my maiden name so that would be a dead end as well. Any advice or should I just stop thinking about this 🤣
Hang on I thought the census only applied to those LIVING in the U.K.?? I'm living abroad right now. Was I supposed to have taken part?
ConquestEmpireHungerPlague · 29/03/2021 12:23

I think OP is living in the UK, but her marriage took place abroad. She was hoping her descendents might be able to link her maiden and married surnames from the census information they'll be able to access in the future and thus identify her as the particular @chillichutneysarnie they are looking for.

SaucySarah · 03/04/2021 19:48

@Sengasox

I believe you can register your overseas marriage here. Maybe register isn't the correct word but there certainly used to be a mechanism by which it could be recorded here.
Yes I think you definitely can. A close family member of mine was married abroad, in country in which they were living at the time which has a language that is not widely spoken anywhere else. I remember they had to register the marriage in Britain somehow, so they could get a certificate that British authorities would accept for name change purposes etc. No one would be able to read it in the original language.
SaucySarah · 03/04/2021 19:51

This webpage says " there is nothing stopping you from walking down the registrars aisle again and formalising your overseas marriage or civil partnership in the UK."
www.jefferieslaw.co.uk/news/ask-jefferies-i-want-to-get-married-or-enter-a-civil-partnership-abroad-what-do-i-need-to-consider

So perhaps that's what my relatives did, just to formalise the UK paperwork?

newtb · 19/06/2021 10:26

There is a mechanism for births.

Have a friend born in Paris in 1930 to British parents. Her birth was registered at the mairie under French law, and also notified to the British Embassy in Paris at the same time.

Otoh, my uncle was born in the Somme in 1922 to a French mother and a British father who worked for the Imperial War Graves Commission as it was then. His mother had no right to vote nor to pass her nationality on to her son. By the time he was 21, he was a first officer in bomber command. He's completely under the radar. His father accepted the view of his mother as he was a foreigner, and his mother, conscious of her perceived status being a relative of Madame Pompadour wasn't bothered by post-revolutionary bureaucracy. He has a British Passport.

His birth is registered at the Mairie in 'his' village.
His first and second marriages are registered in the UK, as was his divorce. My aunt"s ashes are buried in his parents" grave in the village. But, even though the Mairie had to open the grave and dig a hole for the casket, and knew her, as far as officialdom is concerned he isn't a widower, but single, never married.

Ancestry, being an American site isn't particularly strong on this type of thing. I used to have full world wide access. When I didn't and looked on the French site I could find his mother, and him, but never on the world access. I contacted ancestry and they completely refused to accept this because it doesn't fit with the way they see the world.....

Paypal used to be like this, I have bank accounts and credit and debit cards in both the UK and France. They told me that this is illegal. They(ve got better.

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