Double wedding

Came across an interesting situation on FreeBMD; I was looking up the wedding
of Joseph Henry Nettlefold and Mary Maria Seaborne in 1867. I get two hits,
one in Birmingham and one in Islington, both with double entries for the
bride: Mary Maria and Mary Marie, obviously the same couple. The Groom was
born in London and I think the bride is from Birmingham. Certainly Joseph
was working in Birmingham for the family company. Why would there be two
seperate entries?

Peter Goodey...

It is strange that both Joseph Henrys are shown in bold which I thought

Steven Gibbs...

I would imagine that, whatever the legalities were, they went through
two ceremonies, one in each location.

Graeme Wall...

I can envisage two seperate church ceremonies, especially as the groom was a
Unitarian and the bride may have been CoE, but there should only be one civil

Graeme Wall...

The plot thickens slightly, the bride wasn't CoE but Roman Catholic I've
discovered, so a wedding in a Catholic church wouldn't have lead to an
automatic civil registration, there would have to be a seperate civil
ceremony. What would be the situation in a Unitarian chapel?

registration.

Steven Gibbs...

Why? Each ceremony would create an entry in the churches marriage
register, both of which entries would have been copied and sent off to
the authorities for the purposes on civil registration (I would have
thought).

Steven Gibbs
Bedford

Charani...

If there were two ceremonies in two different places, then each place
would produce a record, especially if neither of the couple said that
they had been, or intended to be, married elsewhere.

pilgrimsprogress...

Something hasn't, if I remember correctly, been mentioned, whether the
certificates, if they were purchased, said whether they were by banns and/or
license. Surely this would give a clue as to what the position had been???

Graeme Wall...

I don't have the certificates, its only a slight interest as I'm tracing
through the 19th Century Birmingham 'mafia' and I can't justify 14 quid on
certs.

Charani...

It wouldn't help if both were by banns or both were by licence, which
is a possibility. I wonder how close together the two events were.

Graeme Wall...

Same quarter :-) Not a great deal of help.

Charani...

Twelve weeks apart at most, a couple of days at least.

I think they could easily have generated two civil registrations
because they weren't obviously the same couple and the marriages took
place in two very different places.

Steven Gibbs
Bedford

meant that the entry had been double keyed - ie independently checked.

The acid test is to check what the actual GRO index shows. Perhaps the
index really does show one in Birmigham and one in Islington?

Graeme Wall...

Inevitably the scans aren't available of the FreeBMD site!