Marriage Licences

[sigma]

What areas of England would be covered by Marriage Licences issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury

[Buenchico]

A licence granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury is probably a special licence, rather than a common licence. The very nature of a special licence is that there are no geographic boundaries. (A common licence only grants the right to marry in specified parishes. A special licence, which can only be granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, grants to right to marry in any church).

Chris

[dot.hawkes]

there is an excellent gude to the ecclesiastical jurisdictions pertaining to marriage licenses published in the excellent Gibson guide series:
The guides are available from your local family history society or from the Federation of Family History Societies
www.FFHS.org
see below:
Bishops' Transcripts and Marriage Licences, Bonds and
Allegations: A Guide to their Location and Indexes.
Third edition, updated 1992. 40 pp.
These records, which often supplement parish registers, vary in their extent and finding aids and are not always in the most obvious record offices. Covering England and Wales, Ireland and the Isle of Man, this is an essential reference work.

The guide will briefly explain the circumstances in which a marriage licence was obtained prior to the start of the modern civil registration system in 1837. It will also list by County where extant records of granted licences can be found.

I have alot of the guides but not this particluar one.

In the past I have researched licences that were granted because of residency, age, marital status or timescale.

[sigma]

Cheers dot,
TWR Computing have a cd containing Archbishop licences and i wondered if it was worth buying as it covers birth, marriages etc prior to 1837.

[dot.hawkes]

what is the exact title of the CD? i would imagine it is a licenced version of a hard copy secondary source volume that is probably available elsewhere, don;t be tempted to purchase things like that unless you have a really strong idea your ancestors were likly to be included.