St Andrew Holborn Marriage Index 1754 - 1812

Background
The church of St Andrew Holborn is the largest of Sir Christopher Wren's London parish churches and stands at the western end of Holborn Viaduct by Holborn Circus. It also served one of the biggest parishes in London (spanning London and Middlesex) out of which five new parishes were eventually formed.

Entries from the marriage registers do not appear on the International Genealogical Index or in Boyd's Marriage Index. Pallot's Marriage index has entries for 1780-1837 but these give only year and omit many of the details from the original registers. It is for these reasons that, in 2003, the Society of Genealogists decided to embark a project to transcribe and index the registers. The index for the period 1754-1812, comprises 18,724 marriages and around 75,000 names.

What do the records contain?
The St Andrew Holborn marriage index records contain much more information than many other marriage indexes. For both bride and groom the following information is provided:

full name - including any title
age – this is simply “full age” (ie over 21), “minor” or unknown
status - ie spinster/batchelor, widow/widower, or unknown
occupation – though rarely stated
parish and county - over 4% of grooms and nearly 3% of brides come from outside London or Middlesex
parish and county as in the register - these are not always exactly the same as the standardised parish and county names. For example, because St Andrew Holborn is split between the City of London and Middlesex, sometimes the county is shown in the register as London and sometimes as Middlesex, though for searching we have included St Andrew Holborn in London.
Whether the register has been signed - in only a handful of cases has the register not been signed by both parties, but quite often only a mark is made – ie because the party cannot write their name. In 13% of cases the groom “made [his] mark”, but in 32% of cases the bride made a mark, showing how widespread illiteracy was among women in the late 18th century.
how they were married - by banns or by licence
date of the marriage
name of the officiating clerk or minister who conducted the ceremony
names of witnesses - names of two witnesses are generally present (missing in under 1/2 % of cases), but the Remarks field will often contain further witnesses’ names
Remarks - this section contains miscellaneous information, including, for example:
- name of the person or persons who gave permission for the marriage where one or both parties were minors, usually a parent but can be someone else if the parents were dead)
- names of further witnesses
- more details of where a party came from
- a fuller name for the party (eg if they were titled or had academic qualifications).

Searching the index
You can search on the names of one or both parties to the marriage, on all names appearing in the records (ie the parties to the marriage, the officiating clerk, the witnesses, and any other name which may appear), on the year or year range for the marriage, and on the county and parish where either or both parties were living at the time of the marriage.
See Help page for details of name variations.

Where did the couples come from?
The vast majority – over 96% of grooms and over 97% of brides came from the City of London or Middlesex; 86% of grooms were resident in the parish itself, and over 90% of brides.
See Help page for details of parish and county searching.

The source documents
This index is a finding aid and users should always refer back to the original material. An interesting idiosyncrasy of this parish is that after 1754 two sets of registers were kept and the registers for marriages by licence are separated from those by banns; about two thirds of the marriages were by banns and one third by licence.

The original registers are held at the Guildhall, because the parish church itself is in the City. Microfilmed copies of both sets of registers are kept at the Guildhall and the Society of Genealogists Library; the London Metropolitan Archives has microfilm copies of the registers for marriages by banns only.
See Source Record Archives for contact details

If you wish to look at an original entry you need to know which film to look at. The film numbers at the SoG Library are:

Roll number	Year range	Register type
3866	1754 - 1781	Banns
3867	1781 - 1812	Banns
3868	1754 - 1781	Licences
3869	1781 - 1812	Licences

Not only might additional information be available on the original entry (eg ages) but, more importantly, names which an indexer struggled with might be more obvious to someone familiar with the relevant family. The original register might also indicate if one of the participants had their abode in the Middlesex (rather than London) part of the parish.

Please advise us of any errors you find in the index.

Online ordering
Order hard copies of the original register entries by clicking the Add to cart button at the side of the index record. You will be asked for a credit/debit card number and delivery details. Orders are processed by the Society of Genealogists and hard copies will be sent by post (airmail outside the UK).
Hard copy documents cost Ł10 GBP (approx US$18) or Ł8 for SoG members.

Acknowledgements
A volunteer project of this nature, involving as it does many tens of thousands of entries, requires the cooperation of many people. Nothing would have been achieved without Colin Allen FSG, who managed the project from conception to completion; the transcription work has taken much time and effort by many Society of Genealogists volunteers; Sue Gibbons and Else Churchill, as officers of the Society, provided encouragement, advice and resources; David Squire FSG authored the inputting software, wrote the project website, and prepared the final data. Our thanks go to all involved in this project.

See also:	Help on Searching - St Andrew Holborn Marriage Index
	Logged in users search the collection

Presented in association with the Society of Genealogists www.sog.org.uk