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 Boyds Marriage Index
Boyd's Marriage Index is an index to English marriages taken from copies of parish marriage registers, Bishop's Transcripts and marriage licences, for the period 1538 to 1837 (when statutory registration began). It was principally the work of Percival Boyd, MA, FSA, FSG (1866-1955) and his staff. It was made at his expense between 1925 and 1955.rnrnAll English counties are covered, although none completely , and the periods indexed vary according to the copies of records which were readily available. Registers from over 4,300 parishes have been indexed, a total of over 7 million names covering 12-15% of all marriages for this time period. rnrnThe index is particularly important to anyone researching East Anglian ancestry for not only is the coverage almost complete (over 95% of all the ancient parishes are included), but little of this data is available anywhere else (for example, the International Genealogical Index has very limited coverage of this area). rnrnThe Index is divided into the following three series. rnrnMain Series - contains records for the following counties: rnCambridgeshire, Cornwall, Cumberland, Derbyshire, Devon, Durham, Essex, Gloucestershire, Lancashire, Middlesex (includes Cities of London and Westminster), Norfolk, Northumberland, Shropshire, Somerset, Suffolk, Yorkshire. rnThe County of London was not formed until 1888. London parishes formerly in Surrey and Kent, south of the River Thames, are included in the two Miscellaneous Series.rnrnFirst Miscellaneous Series - 1538-1775. This data includes over 1.4 million names that are not included in the Main series. The records in the First Series include the following counties: Bedforshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Dorset, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Staffordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire, Westmorland, Wiltshire, and Worcestershire.rnrnSecond Miscellaneous Series - 1538-1837rnThis Series was typed by the Genealogical Society of Utah from miscellaneous slips prepared and bequeathed to them by Boyd. It contains marriages from all the English counties, including gaps left by the First Miscellaneous Series. It is not currently available on SoG Data Online.rnrnrnAs well as entries from parish registers and Bishop's Transcripts, the index also includes 12,000 marriage licence entries (24,000 people) for the Archdeaconries of Suffolk (9,758) and Sudbury (2,243). There are also a few records of Banns and marriage announcements appearing in the Gentleman's Magazinern rnAll index entries contain: First and Last name of groom, First and Last name of bride, Year of marriage, County and Parish of marriage, Record source - BT (Bishops' Transcript), ML (marriage licence), BANNS (banns). Please note this is only an index and the original parish register entry will in many cases give additional detail.rnrnThere are some idiosyncrasies in the way last names are spelled and first names abbreviated. rn rnCoverage of the index is provided in A List of Parishes in Boyd's Marriage Index, Society of Genealogists, 1994 which can be obtained from the Society’s bookshop.rn
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Boyds Marriage index 1st Miscellaneous series - Northamptonshire party 2
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