Find your ancestors in Northamptonshire Marriages

Find your ancestors in these East Midlands marriage records. There are over 190,000 records from Northamptonshire in this collection. The records will reveal your ancestors’ wedding date, parishes and even occupations. You can search by both spousal names to help you narrow your results.

The records are transcripts of the original marriage records. The details in each records can vary depending on the time of the marriage or from which parish the record was retrieved but most will include the following:

• Name
• Spousal name
• Wedding date
• Marriage place
• County and country
• Parish
• Spouse’s parish
• Marital status (S-spinster or B-bachelor)
• Spouse’s marital status
• Occupation
• Spouse’s occupation
• By Banns or licence

Discover More about the Northamptonshire Marriages

Included in the transcripts is a field to describe whether your relatives were married by licence or by Banns. Marriage licences were created in the 14th century. Couples could obtain a marriage licence for a fee if they wished to waive the Bann period. Banns were announcements made in the church on three separate Sundays during the three months leading up to the wedding day. The announcements were made to give the congregation an opportunity to voice any objection to the marriage. Along with a marriage licence fee, the couples were obligated to sign a declaration stating that there were not lawful impediments to their marriage. There are different reasons why couples married by licence instead of by Bann; they may have wanted to get married quickly, they may have wanted to show that they could pay for a licence or the couple was getting married away from home.