Search Lincolnshire Marriages and Banns

These records provide transcripts and, where available, images of the original registers. The amount of information included varies, but usually includes the following details:

• Name
• Date
• Place
• Spouse’s names

From July 1837, when the same landscape-format marriage registers were introduced for both civil and religious ceremonies in England, information which appeared only irregularly before becomes standard, including:

• Marital status
• Occupation
• Residence
• Father’s name and occupation
• Names of witnesses

All three Parts of Lincolnshire are included – Lindsey, Kesteven and Holland.

The records are primarily those generated by the Church of England as the Established Church. However, note that between 1753 and June 1837 Dissenters were obliged to marry in Anglican churches, so for example the marriages of Baptists and Methodists should appear within this period.

This search combines three different types of record:

1. Banns registers. These usually start no earlier than 1754 and record the announcements in church of a couple’s intention to marry, typically read out on three consecutive Sundays prior to the wedding. If bride and groom were from different parishes, banns should have been read in both churches and therefore appear in the registers for both parishes. Some banns registers include a marginal note of the date of subsequent marriage, if celebrated in that church; another register type included both banns date and marriage date by design.
2. Marriage registers. These record the event of marriage, as celebrated in the church or chapel. Civil registers of marriages (which began in summer 1837) are not included and are available only through the General Register Office’s marriage index for England & Wales.
3. Marriage licences. Some couples married by licence rather than by banns. Licences could be obtained for a fee from the diocese. They are an authorisation to marry without the usual preliminaries, and do not give either the date of marriage or the place of marriage. The date shown will be the date of the granting of the licence. The place or places, if any, will be those mentioned at the time of the application and not necessarily the eventual marriage venue. It is not unusual to see two or more places approved in the licence.

By their very nature, both banns and licences are pre-nuptial documents and record intention to marry. Not all couples for whom a banns or a marriage licence exists would have got married – in some cases, a marriage may not have been carried out, due to, for example, change of heart, opposition, or death of one party.

The search includes marriage indexes (including those of marriage licences) published through our partnership with the Family History Federation. These will not be associated with an image of the original page of the register.