How to Find Your Ancestors' Marriages? History, Method, and Tips

Are you looking for your ancestors' marriage certificate? We help you find it with some history, methods, and useful tips.

In genealogy, the marriage certificate is the most important and reliable document for information. Indeed, the most recent records help us advance our research with birth dates and places of both spouses, names of their parents, and their places of residence and/or death (with the date!) as well as their professions depending on the chattiness of the civil officer. 

Note that you must wait 75 years before you can consult a marriage certificate without redaction of the details (by going to the departmental archives, town hall, or online - but be mindful of digitization delays). 

🕰️ A Little History on Marriage...

1215 - Council of Latin IV

• Obligation to publish banns. 
• Secret marriages (to limit consanguineous marriages) and marriages of priests forbidden.
• The public consent of both spouses is mandatory.
• The priest must necessarily be present at the wedding.

1545-1563 - Council of Trent

• The calendar for marriages is strict: no marriages during religious feasts (Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Ascension, Assumption, All Saints' Day, Advent, and Christmas). Our ancestors, being mostly rural, married mainly in the off-season (January or February). 
• Marriages without at least two witnesses and a Catholic priest are null.
• The obligation of consent of the spouses is confirmed and parental consent is no longer necessary.

1580 - Ordinance of Blois 

• Parental consent is again required to validate the marriage.
• The keeping of marriage registers is mandatory.

1639 - Declaration of Saint Germain-en-Laye

• Couples who marry secretly (without parental consent and without witness or priest) will be disinherited.

17th century - Well-established Traditions

• To prevent spouses from meeting before marriage, the declaration, betrothal, and engagement often took place the day before the wedding.
• A dispensation could be requested to marry during restricted periods for serious reasons.

1667 - Ordinance of Saint Germain-en-Laye

• The keeping of two registers (original and copy) of parish registers is established. 
• The spouses and four witnesses must sign the marriage certificate.

1736 - Royal Declaration

• The original copy of parish registers must be deposited at the clerk's office of the bailiwick or seneschal. 

1792 - Constitution and Law 

• Marriage becomes a civil contract - registers are no longer kept by priests but by civil officers. Acts are standardized over time.

1800-1802 - Law of the Year VIII

• Marriages must be registered in the commune headquarters of the canton. 
• Civil marriage must be celebrated before the religious marriage or risk nullity. 

1897 - Law

• Marriages are recorded in marginal notes on birth certificates. 

To learn more about marriages, check out these books and journals: 

• The Marriage of Christians Volume II - From the Council of Trent to the Present Day
• Illegitimate Filial and Postponed Marriage in France in the Early Modern Period (16th-18th centuries)
• Celibacy and Marriage Age in 18th and 19th Century France
• Age at Marriage and its Influence on Birth Rate
• From the Revolution to the Present - Marriage in All Its States
• Discussion on the Evolution of Marriage and Consanguinity 
• Age Dispensations for Marriage Since 1889
• Marriage in Canon Law
• Marriage, a Seasonal Custom. A Contribution to the Sociological Study of Nuptiality in France.

Finally, the marriageable age and marital majority depend mostly on the era and the successive rules - to help you navigate, check out this table from the departmental archives of Indre :

📜 What Archives and Tools to Find a Marriage?

If you are looking for the marriage of your ancestors, check out these resources and tools - they may provide reliable leads to find this record (assuming it hasn't been destroyed...)

Marriage Certificates

For beginners in genealogy, know that you can find a marriage certificate at the departmental archives, municipal archives, or town hall, free of charge, 75 years after the celebration.

Two periods of research in genealogy are distinguished: before the Revolution, where you search among parish registers (kept by the Church), and after the Revolution, the period of the civil registry. 

To search for a marriage certificate in the archives, you must have some information - otherwise, your search won't be impossible, just longer: 

• The department and commune where the marriage took place
• The year of the marriage (or the period)
• The names of the spouses to confirm a filiation

To learn more about the basics of genealogy, check out our guide. 

Decennial Tables

For marriages in the 19th and 20th centuries, do not overlook the decennial tables. If the act is destroyed and/or missing, its mention in the tables can confirm that it did take place in the commune. Also check these tables in nearby communes, you will save time compared to strict scanning of complete marriage registers. 

Marriage Contracts

The marriage contracts can be found in the E series of departmental archives or possibly in private archives referenced in series J, or even in your family archives. 

Before the Revolution, many couples drew up a marriage contract, regardless of their fortune (except in Brittany where it was rarer). 

These contracts were drawn up by a notary between 1 day and 2 months before the wedding and provide several clues such as: 

• Names, first names, professions, residences of the future spouses and their parents
• If needed, the name(s) of previous spouse(s)
• Financial contributions from parents or spouses
• Spouses' separate property
• Property excluded from the community
• Widowhood conditions
• Property that will go to children in case of death or remarriage
• And other useful information...

Note that since 1850, if a contract was drawn up, it is mentioned in the marriage certificate. Before this date, mentioning the contract was not mandatory. 

In theory, to find a marriage contract you must know the name of the notary and his residence, the names of the spouses, and the date of the act. If you don't know all these elements, your search will simply be a bit longer. The marriage contract is available for free consultation in departmental archives 75 years after its date.

Marriage Publications - Banns and Engagements

Depending on the region and the era, some departmental archives have made marriage publication registers available to their users on-site or online in series E with civil registry registers. 

Family Photos

Family photos, and especially wedding photos, can help you find the long-sought marriage certificate! 

First of all, check your own archives for wedding photos. Otherwise, take the time to ask cousins; maybe they also have family archives. 

Once you have the wedding photos, several clues can guide you: if the family photo is annotated, it's a jackpot! Otherwise, you'll have to be clever, find the photographer (not alive, we agree...) and his area of operation, and try to date the photo (we also have a guide for that!). This information will help you refine your research in the archives.

You can also ask for help - from the family, of course, to identify the married couple and guests - but also online! There are several mutual aid groups on social networks (especially Facebook) or through genealogy associations that can make a call for help through their own networks.

You can also check the iconographic collections of departmental and municipal archives, online or on-site, for wedding photos of your ancestors. 

Geneafinder's Missing Dates Estimator

The research teams at Doptim have developed a unique prediction algorithm capable of providing you with estimates for missing dates in your genealogy. This algorithm processes birth, marriage, and death dates of people in your genealogical tree born before 1900.

This tool aims to save you time in your research! And it is powered by the dated data from the trees on Geneafinder. Thus, the more our users fill in their trees, the more reliable the estimated dates will be for your genealogy! 

💡 A Few Tips to Find a Marriage in the Archives

Several tips can help you find the marriage record of a couple in the archives... 

• In general, the parents' marriage takes place before the birth of the first child. 
• In the Old Regime, weddings were often held in the bride's parish.
• Read the birth certificates of children; they mention if the parents were married or not (in case of a birth out of wedlock).
• Search for the marriage certificate in the birth communes of the first children and in surrounding communes.
• Check the birthplaces of the parents in censuses to verify records in these communes. 
• Check the various places of residence of the spouse in military recruitment registers.
• Search for the places of origin of the godparents of the children and check records in these communes for the parents' marriage certificate. 

You now have several cards in hand to try to find your ancestors' marriage certificate.