Hi Jan Despite Ancestry's strange reference to the Hearth Tax, the "Sudbury - Marriage Licences" collection, as indicated by Mel and Ian a couple of days ago, relates to the Harleian Society's transcripts of allegations for marriage licences from the Archdeaconry Court of Sudbury (see also https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Suffolk_Church_Records). If the archdeaconry court's licence was accepted at St James's church (where the ROCKET - HESTER wedding took place on 6 Aug. 1805, according to the Suffolk FHS index for Thingoe Deanery) there would be no point in going to the trouble and expense of applying to the Norwich Consistory Court (NCC) for an additional licence. Other than signatures, the original allegation (at the Suffolk Record Office in Bury St Edmunds) probably gives no more useful details than the transcript. I think the closest you'll get to finding an image of the original document online is the list of FHL film numbers at https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/show?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fcatalog-search-api%3A8080%2Fwww-catalogapi-webservice%2Fitem%2F648586. Since Serjeant Michael ROCKET lived in Kent and not in the Diocese of Norwich like his bride, we might expect the licence to have been issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But in practice this "rule" was frequently ignored by both the local Suffolk courts and the NCC. Conversely, many couples from a single archdeaconry in Suffolk or Norfolk obtained NCC licences, perhaps because it was more convenient to go to nearby surrogates. If you are still ploughing through the images of NCC bonds or allegations for the other marriage, it may be wise to check the FamilySearch.org database for a few of the more legible documents from the period in question to see whether they have been indexed. Some of the results give bond numbers that can help to locate the original images. Unfortunately, the indexing is incomplete and there seems to be no easy way to gauge the coverage. For example, I've discovered that the second half of the 956 NCC images filed in 1783-1784 are missing from the database. Having begun to index them myself, I feel less inclined to moan about such shortcomings, and all the more appreciative of the countless hours of effort already invested in this huge project. My comparatively small index is unlikely to be completed for some while yet, not least because I've also been working on a revision of the guidance notes at https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/England_Norfolk_Marriage_Bonds_%28FamilySearch_Historical_Records%29, which currently leave a lot to be desired. Watch this space... David Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2012 16:41:55 +0100 From: Jan Rockett <[email protected]> Many Thanks for the information. I am ploughing through marriage bonds for another marriage by licence and when I have finished I shall try and find this one. I have found some Suffolk bonds in the Norwich Consistory Court records, can I assume this one may be there too?