If your ancestors got hitched outside of a church, follow Judith Batchelor’s advice to…
Find records of ‘clandestine’ marriages
IIt’s thought that in the 17th and 18th Centuries up to a third of all marriages in England and Wales were clandestine or irregular – meaning they didn’t take place in a parish church. They were often performed in a prison, or in a tavern or coffee house just outside the prison gates. By the 1740s over half of all weddings in London took place at Fleet Prison.
These were legal as long as both parties consented, were of legal age (14 for males and 12 for females at the time) and the ceremony was conducted by a Church of England clergyman. The Fleet Marriage Registers, kept by individual clergymen, are held in class RG 7 at the National Archives (www.snipca.com/47895). They span the years 1667 to 1754 and the information recorded is often more than what is found in a typical parish register.
Search registers on AncestryTo search these records on Ancestry, visit www.snipca.com/47892 and enter as much information as you can, including names and the years of birth and marriage.
I knew that my fifth-great grandfather Corbett Seymore was baptised on 4 November 1723 in the parish of St Dunstan in East Stepney, London. I suspected that his parents, William Seymore – a mariner from Ratcliff in Stepney – and Christabel Stevenson married in a clandestine ceremony a few months earlier.
I searched for them, and found 21 grooms named William Seymore (listed under different spelling variants – use the Broad and Exact sliders to tweak this filter, 1 in our screenshot above). However, there were only two entries where the bride had a name similar to Christabel 2 , so I viewed those records.
The two marriage entries gave much the same information – that they married on 14 August 1723, at the Fleet Prison – though the official recording the wedding misspelt her name as ‘Cristaball’ (see screenshot above).
William was 19 and Christabel was 17, so they may have married at the prison because they didn’t have their parents’ consent, which was usually needed for anyone under 21. Also, Christabel must have been pregnant.
Tick ‘name variants’ in Findmypast
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