Search Hertfordshire banns & marriages

Each result will provide an image of the original entry and a transcript of key details.

Banns

Transcripts will include the following details:

• Intended bride’s and groom’s names
• Banns date (the first of three)
• Marriage year
• Parish

Images can provide additional details such as the other banns dates and the marital statuses of the couple.

Marriages

Transcripts may include the following information:

• Names of the bride and groom
• Marriage date
• Marriage place
• Ages of the bride and groom
• Bride’s father’s name
• Groom’s father’s name

As with banns, the image of the original marriage entry may provide additional details: marital status, occupation, residence, father’s occupation, witnesses, and more.

Hertfordshire

The county of Hertfordshire lies in southern England and includes much of the northern and central areas of the London Borough of Barnet. The county town is Hertford. Many examples of Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Roman remains have been discovered in Hertfordshire and there are a number of Roman roads throughout the county. Modern-day Hertfordshire is served by a network of rail links and direct roads to London.

Banns

Banns of marriage, more commonly known simply as the ‘banns’ (from a Middle English word meaning ‘proclamation’, rooted in the Old French), are the public announcement in a Christian parish church of an impending marriage. Banns were announced in the home parishes of the parties involved for three Sundays in a row in the three months leading up to the wedding date. If the record does not state the marriage date, it can be estimated by the date of the last banns announcement. However, keep in mind that banns are not a confirmation that a marriage took place. In some cases, the banns may have been announced, but for whatever reason, the couple did not proceed with the marriage.

The purpose of banns was to prevent invalid marriages by allowing anyone to raise any canonical or legal impediment to the marriage. These impediments might include a pre-existing marriage that had neither been dissolved nor annulled, a vow of celibacy, a lack of consent, or the couple being related within the prohibited degrees of kinship. Couples could obtain a marriage license for a fee if they wished to waive the banns period. There are different reasons why couples married by license instead of by banns; they may have wanted to get married quickly, they may have wanted to show that they could pay for a license, or they may have desired to wed away from home.

Marriages

Originally, marriage records were kept in a single volume along with baptisms and burials. The events were listed chronically throughout the volume with minimal detail. Marriage records were not separated into their own volumes until 1754 with the passing of Hardwick’s Marriage Act. At that time, it became a requirement to record the marital status of the bride and groom and whether the marriage was solemnized by banns or by license. Later, the Church of England started to use pre-printed register books to keep the parish records. In 1837, civil registration was introduced, and couples were no longer obligated to wed within an Anglican Church. Only Quakers and Jews had previously been exempt from this obligation.