Looking for a little advice here. I'm methodically working through the various siblings of my direct ancestors. The marriage index is the most frustrating. I've found three of the sisters in one generation, but FreeBMD gives pages with names -- up to five names per page -- and I have to guess which ones are the spouses. For one sister, Maggie, there were four potential spouses, but fortunately I could find her and Alfred in the next UK census, confirming that he was the one she married. I've had no luck with the other two sisters. They don't show up as married to any of the men's names on the page in which they appear. In fact, the men don't always show up in the next census either. It occurred to me that perhaps the names on any one page didn't always match up neatly with each other, and that I should go back and look at preceding and following pages and then check those possible couples out also in the next census. Has this worked for anyone, or are the spouses always on the same pages? Since these people aren't my direct line, I'm less ready to madly buy up marriage certificates. Has anyone had any experience with this problem and found any useful tips, short of simply ordering the marriage certificate?? Pam Perryman Eugene, Oregon, USA

Hi Pam, I've been fortunate to have found the marriage needed on the IGI ( www.familysearch.org ) on times, which obviously gives you both people who married. Unfortunately, not all marriages are on there, not all parishes are on there, and not all married in churches, some married at a register office. The Hants OPC site is well worth a look ( www.knightroots.co.uk ) then click online transcriptions. Again though, it won't include marriages at reg. offices. The older marriage indexes had 8 people to a page, 4 grooms, 4 brides, then it later changed to just 2 grooms, 2 brides which made life a bit easier still when trying to track them on the next available census. Then later again, 1911 if I remember rightly, the indexes also included the surname of the appropriate bride or groom which made the matching process absolute heaven! It's also worth googling for info, as I've found info on my family that way, although true to say, not so often. You could just hit lucky though. Take good care, happy hunting, Jon