Can I find out if someone is married...

[burninguphere]

... Without asking them direct.

Please don't tell me to just use my words and ask the person concerned. That's not possible.

I know their name, date of birth and residential address. Is there any way to research this information online to find out if / when someone married?

Knowing whether the person I am enquiring about is a blood relative or not doesn't assist in finding out whether they are married.

However, as it happens, I am trying to find out the marital status of a blood relative. That's why I already have so much information about them, other than their marital status.

And before anyone asks, no, the person is not my child.

I'm not stalking them, I'm in social contact with them from time to time, but for reasons of delicacy I am not going to ask them , or other relatives , directly whether they are married.

Most of the questions being asked by posters are out of pure nosiness , not because knowing the answers would help me in my quest.

HTH

FreeBMD only goes up to 1984, so probably not much use for this enquiry.

It goes up to about 1996. But that's still 30 years ago so again may not be of much use.

As a previous poster mentioned , it’s the General Register Office. If you know their full name, date of birth I think that you can obtain it with that info.

I actually joined Ancestry briefly and searched their name to get an index number (that might have been to get a copy death certificate).

I thought you were asking a silly question OP but apparently, unless you know where they could have been married, there is no central database which seems insane considering how easy it would be to commit bigamy. Have they always lived in the same area/county?

Yes, at the same address for more than 20 years.

Bigamy is really easy!

Sorry OP, back to the point - if you have a rough idea when they were married you can search the official registers online - ancestry is good too. Search both halves of the couple. Helps if you can guess where they married.

In the uk wives/husbands don’t automatically inherit, you need a will to get most assets, and unmarried couples don’t inherit anything without a will. If you suspect shenanigans you can find the probate record online at dot gov if it was worth over £240,000. You just need the persons name and place of death.

If this is regarding a will, does whether or not they are married affect things then?

Are you making a will, has someone already died and you are an executor or beneficiary, or is it the will of the person you want to find out about?

Just trying to comprehend why you need to know, because you might not need to find out that information for the purposes of a will, iyswim.

Ancestry or any of the similar sites will tell you, unless it’s very recent.

If you have access to an ancestry website - possibly a free trial - you can usually do a search on a name and date of birth and select births, deaths and/or marriages. I found out my step dad had had a secret marriage between my mum and his assumed ‘second’ wife that none of us ever knew about LOL

The issue people are having is that although the information they’re asking for doesn’t help in tracking it down, it does help give people comfort that they are helping someone who has good intentions not bad.

You could be someone attempting to commit fraud and they don’t know. And yes you could lie still, but people just want to feel better about it before helping.

Please ignore the goady posts, OP!
Marital status can be relevant to a will because marriage invalidates any previous wills.
This is a very interesting quashing because what is stop bigamy if there is no central register..
You could maybe hire a private investigator?

FreeBMD goes up to 1996, but doesn't include all entries, the alternative is you need to go to one of the places that hold the complete set of indexes and search, (just like Miss Marple at Somerset House), easier with uncommon names, I wouldn't want to be looking for John Smith marrying Sharon Evans. As previous poster there is no central register of divorces. Your post implies that they are using different surnames, that often means they are not married but is not a guaranteed, I have one friend who has been married, to her second husband for 30 years and still uses the name of her first husband. For the poster asking about bigamy, I think the biggest deterrence (to users of this site) would be 2 MIL's.

Yes the Canadian Mall Marriage 6000 now records all marriages.

Lol @ 2 MILs 😂

It sounds like this is a parent and their partner being queried. OP may have a copy of a will from many years ago saying they are a beneficiary to their parent’s estate. But if the parent has married this will is invalidated and, unless a new will has been made in OPs favour, the spouse will inherit some or all of the estate on death.

Many posters will say it’s distasteful to want to know if you will inherit when someone is still alive. And perhaps it will all go on the parent’s care anyway. But if there is doubt in OPs mind as to whether what she was previously told would happen on the parent’s death will happen, then I think she is not being unreasonable to try and find out. And it can be a difficult conversation to have with a parent.

No, not a parent, but it's a good point. I can see why a potential beneficiary would want to know if a parent had secretly remarried.

192/electoral roll could tell you if another person with the same surname lives at the same address

Only partly useful. My DH and I live at the same address. I didn’t change my name on marriage.

If you get married abroad, for certain countries there is no requirement to also register the marriage in the UK. I didn't so you'd never find a UK record of me being (legally!) married.

The electoral roll for the address is probably the thing to check but as you say even if they have different names it doesn’t mean they aren’t married. But if they have the same surname now then it would confirm a marriage.

Neither have changed names. A lot more people don't change their name these days anyway.

I presume if you know the name of the person they might have married you have tried usual social media places like Facebook - many people get tagged in wedding photos even if their own profile is private. But in answer to your question - I think it’s very difficult. I have found it so even in a professional investigative capacity without wishing to be too outing.

I got married abroad in a place where it’s legal and you don’t need to register anything in the UK. I’m not sure how anyone who didn’t know me well could find this out, even if they had all my details.