If that Register Office carries out such a policy then it is acting illegally and should be reported. The law (1949 Marriage Act) states - "63.-(I) Every incumbent, registering officer of the Society of Friends, secretary of a synagogue and registrar by whom a marriage register book is kept shall at all reasonable hours allow searches to be made in any marriage register book in his keeping, and shall give a copy certified under his hand of any entry in such a book, on payment of the following fee, that is to say- (a) for every search covering a period of not more than one year, the sum of one shilling, and for every search covering a period of more than one year, the sum of one shilling for the first year together with an additional sixpence for every additional year; and (b) for every certified copy, the sum of two shillings and sixpence. (2) The last foregoing subsection shall apply in the case of a registered building for which an authorised person has been appointed with the substitution for the reference to the incumbent of a reference to the person having the custody of a marriage register book in accordance with regulations made under section seventy-four of this Act." The above has been ammended with regard to the fees. Cheers Guy Jo Jesson wrote: > For what it's worth I'd like to add my two pen'orth to the discussion re. the above. > > A couple of days ago I received information from a Register Office (not in Yorks) as follows: > > "Due to an ever increasing demand from Family History Researchers, Local Register Offices have now been instructed only to provide certificates from entries that can be 'identified'. For a marriage entry this means the exact location (church)as well as the date (day/month/year) that the marriage took place." > > I'm not sure if this is a countrywide direction, but I do know that friend carrying out research in yet another county has received similar information. > > Of course we have such as www.middlesbrough-indexes.co.uk, which would suggest that some areas at least, are willing and able. > > > Hope this is of use to someone. > > Jo > > > ==== ENG-NORTH-YORKS Mailing List ==== > Uh-Oh!!! <----- Missed or deleted a post that would put a crack in your > wall? Remember, day and night, the RootsWeb Archives are always there to > browse or search from http://www.rootsweb.com . > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > > -- Wakefield, England http://freespace.virgin.net/guy.etchells The site that gives you facts - not promises! I use CDs produced by Archive CD Books to assist fellow researchers http://www.archivecdbooks.org http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~framland/dh/ Whitefield Transcripts, Etch/ells Transcripts