Marriage/Divorce Proceedings in 1964-1968

W

worriedga

Guest
Hello,

I need to prove that a marriage that took place in Nottingham, UK in 1968 was not valid as the groom was previously married in 1964 in Liverpool, UK.

We need to prove that the 1968 marriage was not legal as no divorce had taken place. Also does anyone know how long a divorce would have taken in those days as this is an avenue we could take.

Thank you for all your help.
 
You could do a search in the UK government offices for the marriage.

See [broken link removed].

Or the .
 
I assume that the UK version of the GRO has records of all marriages and all divorces, so marriage cert from 1964 plus absence of divorce records would prove?

Do UK marriage certs have the pre-marriage marital status listed e.g. single, divorced, widowed like Irish one do? If that is the case, having "single" rather than divorced on the 1968 cert may invalid?

On issues like this, the one mistake people often make is confusing a church marriage with a civil marriage.

There are 3 types of "marriage" as follows:

1. Civil ceremony e.g. Registry Office - this is recognised in Law.

2. Combined civil & religious ceremony in church where civil paperwork is completed alongside the church paperwork - this is recognised in Law.

3. Religious marriage ceremony in church - this is NOT recognised in Law.

As well as checking for the GRO records, you need to confirm whether both marriages were in fact legal civil marriages. Its quite common for someone who was legally married, but separated, to have a religious only ceremony with different partner at later date - this was common in pre-divorce era Ireland whereby couples who had option 2 above quite often had the religious part of their marriage annuled by the Catholic church allowing the couple to have religious marriages other people in a catholic church wedding at a later date (though legally still married to original partner).
 
Thank you for your advice.

I have both marriage certs so I will check the martial status.

Does anyone know how long a divorce proceeding would have taken back then?

Thanks in advance.
 
I don't understand the question?

If you have a marriage cert from 1964 it will show both parties as single (or spinster and bachelor of this parish) presumably.

The 1968 marriage cert should show the 'remarried' spouse as either widowed or divorced. If it says single (or spinster/bachelor) then the 1968 marriage can be 'contested' or annulled as the previous 1964 cert clearly shows they were married.

If the remarried spouse declared themselves as widowed or divorced then documents would have to be provided to that effect at the time of the second marriage in 1968.

It's not that far back and you should be able to find the records quite easily; I don't understand why the time taken to get a divorce should be relevant?
 
Thank you.

The 1968 cert says 'bachelor' so that means we can contest it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top