Hi Carol and others, I have found when researching English parish marriage registers that it depended on the time frame as to whether witnesses were known to the couple or were simply what I refer to as "recurring witnesses", those being people who were affiliated with the church in some role and acted as witnesses on any given day. For instance, in the period of time where marriages were restricted to certain churches (ie Manchester Cathedral), vs the small parish churches, many, many marriages were carried each day and in that case, you would see the same witnesses on each entry for that day. When marriages were allowed again to be done in the parishes, it seemed that, in general, friends or family members signed as witnesses, however, this was not always the case. You would really need to see the registers for one or more days in sequence to tell whether they were likely known to the couple or were paid to act as "recurring" witnesses. That is difficult to do when ordering marriage certificates from the record offices because you only have the one document to compare. <snip> Good luck, Sheila J London, ON CANADA __________________________________________________________________ Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr! http://www.flickr.com/gift/