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Age on Marriage Certificate

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by davehdh (U1885264) on Wednesday, 17th August 2005

  I have an English marriage certificate from 1860. In the date column for both the bride and groom is the word "Fule" (I think, it's badly written) instead of a number, which one would expect.
  
  What does this mean ? I believe both the bride and groom were under the ages of 21.
  
  Thanks,
  
  Dave

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Stepney Boy (U1760040) on Thursday, 18th August 2005

  Hi Dave,
  You are correct the word is "full" meaning that the person getting married is over the age of 21. How sure are you of the ages of the couple? Dates of birth based on census returns ages can be a year out depending when in the year that person was born, the person's memory and of couse the 'urgency' of the marriage.
  Regards
  Spike

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Andy Alston (U1650527) on Thursday, 18th August 2005

  People lied about their age for many reasons, and these lies got written down on official forms.
  Some pretended to be older to get a particular job, or more money.
  Some pretended to be younger, usually to be more attractive to the opposite sex, or later in life to be more likely to get a job. Ageism is nothing new!
  Commonly, there would be someone else who started remembering the new "age" for them, so they had to stick with it.
  
  One of my great grandfathers claimed to be seven years younger than he really was when he got married. Even my grandmother knocked a couple of years off. She ended up missing out on two years worth of pension! She was well into her 70s when we found her original birth certificate and confused her with it. She actually believed her lie.

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by davehdh (U1885264) on Thursday, 18th August 2005

  Thanks for the information Andy and Spike. The groom is shown as aged 20 in the 1861 census and the bride is 18 and his is consistent with their ages in later censuses. Both fathers were present at the wedding, so it's unlikely they would have needed to lie about their ages.
  
  I suppose it is just possible the parson was idle and did not bother to record actual ages but as the possible date range is very narrow, I will have another look to see if there are any other possible marriages.
  
  Dave

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• Message 5

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by Tamwell (U1779339) on Saturday, 20th August 2005

  Do you know for sure that the fathers were at the wedding? Their names and occupations would be noted on the certificate from information provided by the bride and groom. Sometimes fathers who had been dead for many a year were included on marriage certificates!

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