Faculty Office Marriage Licence Index Index

Faculty Office Marriage Licence Index

This was a major project to create an index to the names of the couples entered in the manuscript calendars listing the marriage licences issued by the Master of Faculties of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the period 1701 to 1850. The project was run by the Society of Genealogists and was co-ordinated by Colin Allen and David Squire.

Background
The Lambeth Palace Library in London contains an extensive collection of marriage and divorce records. Amongst these are the marriage allegations and bonds which supported the granting, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, of marriage licences through the channels of the Vicar-General and the Master of Faculties. These allegations and bonds often contain a considerable amount of material which is of value to the genealogist but which has been difficult to access because only a fraction of the collection has been indexed.
For further information see "Records of Marriage and Divorce in Lambeth Palace Library" by Melanie Barber which appeared on page 109 of issue 4 of volume 20 of "Genealogists' Magazine".
Scope of Project
As well as the allegations and bonds, calendars of licences issued were kept. These calendars are lists, in date order, of the parties to the marriage and, in the case of the Faculty Office, are surnames with either christian names, abbreviated christian names or initials.
Because it has been shown that there is a good correlation between the allegations and the calendars, and because photocopies of the calendars were made available by Lambeth Palace Libary to the Society of Genealogists, it was decided to mount a project to index the Faculty Office calendars once work on the Vicar-General calendars was complete. The work on the Faculty Office index is now complete for the period 1701 to 1850.
Availability
Hard copy (paper) versions of this index are now available at the SoG library and the Lambeth Palace library. Electronic access is available via British Origins. If you use English Origins please read all of the instructions carefully in order to avoid misunderstanding or disappointment.
Volunteers
Many volunteers from the UK and around the world (particularly Australia, Canada and the USA) have contributed to this project for which we are very grateful.

Updated by David Squire 21 January 2002
Please notify me of any errors or broken links.

	Faculty Office Marriage Licence Index
	This was a major project to create an index to the names of the couples entered in the manuscript calendars listing the marriage licences issued by the Master of Faculties of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the period 1701 to 1850. The project was run by the Society of Genealogists and was co-ordinated by Colin Allen and David Squire.