Hi Alan, Missing father's names from marriage certificates post July 1837 is very uncommon and the usual reason is that the fathers were unknown, i.e, the person was illegitimate. The most common error was the parties giving an incorrect age. Mistakes sometimes did occur in recording and I would suggest that you check the original record whether it be at a church or local register office to see in the Register General's copy is in error. Remember that the RG copy is in fact a third hand copy if the wedding was performed at a church so mistakes could occur. If the marriage was by license then check both the allegation and bond to see if the missing information can be found. Alternately, check for the birth/baptism record of the parties. Birth certificates should be the most accurate seeing as it was usually the parent who registered the event, followed by marriages; death records are often the most unreliable as the informant was often someone other than a relative who did not have fu! ll and accurate information. Hope that this helps. Michael Burchall> From: alaninspain@msn.com> To: bridgetmeads@btinternet.com; Dkn72a@aol.com; SFHG-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Fri, 30 May 2008 11:12:46 +0200> Subject: Re: [SFHG] Query.> > I have just received a certificate for a marriage in 1840 and was very > disappointed to see that neither of the fathers were named. There was only > one witness named. Were certificates often "incomplete" in the early years > or is this an isolated case?> Alan 10469> > --------------------------------------------------> From: "Bridget Meads" <bridgetmeads@btinternet.com>> Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 10:20 AM> To: <Dkn72a@aol.com>; <SFHG-L@rootsweb.com>> Subject: Re: [SFHG] Query.> > > Hi Diane> >> > Only if they are listed as witnesses, sometimes the father was already > > dead> > but they omitted to say this, probably because no one asked! They were > > only> > asked who their father was.> >> > Bridget 10773> > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: <Dkn72a@aol.com>> > To: <SFHG-L@rootsweb.com! >> > Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 6:36 AM> > Subject: [SFHG] Query.> >> >> >> Just a thought, after all these years studying Certificates. When a> >> Bride> >> and Bridegroom's parents are named on Certificates, does it mean they> >> were> >> present at the wedding ?> >>> >> Diane 10813> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> -------------------------------> >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to> >> SFHG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes> >> in the subject and the body of the message> >> >> >> > -------------------------------> > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > > SFHG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > > in the subject and the body of the message> > > > -------------------------------> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SFHG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message _________________________________________________________________ Invite your mail contacts to join your friends list with Windows Live Spaces. It's easy! http://spaces.live.com/spacesapi.aspx?wx_action=create&wx_url=/friends.aspx&mkt=en-us