Discover your ancestors in the West Midlands region of England. You can search by name and the name of your ancestor's spouse to help narrow your results. The birth years are estimated from the information given at the time of the marriage, many records only record that the person was 21 years of age of older.
Each record includes a transcript of the details found in the original parish records. The information in each transcript can differ, but most will include:
Name of Bride and Groom
Birth year – the birth year is an estimate. The age of the person is used to create a birth year. If the age is recorded as 21 or older the birth year is created by taking away 21 years from the marriage year.
Marriage date and place
Bride and Groom's age – many records will state this as "Full," meaning they were the legal age to married which was 21 or over. This is why many transcripts have '21 or over' as the age.
Father's notes may include the groom or bride's father's occupation
By banns or license – whether the couple were married by license or by banns.
Discover more about these records
The records include three parishes of Worcestershire: Astley (1539 – 1837), Hanbury (1577 – 1900) and Shrawley (1538 – 1900). It is claimed that Worcestershire was the inspiration for The Shire in Tolkien's The Hobbit. He once wrote, "Any corner of that county (however fair or squalid) is in an indefinable way 'home' to me, as no other part of the world is."
Hanbury is one of the parishes included in the records. The Anglican parish church is St. Mary the Virgin, parts of the church date back to the 1200s. Where the church is built there is evidence that an Iron Age fort once existed there. Roman coins have also been found which suggests that the area was used as a Roman settlement at one time. The church is part of the Diocese of Worcester. It was the family church of the Vernon family who lived at the nearby Hanbury Hall.
Hanbury Hal was built in the early 18th century, by Thomas Vernon, a lawyer and MP. Today the house is open to the public as a National Trust site. The family lived in the house for 300 years, ending in 1940 when George Vernon who died with no children and the house was sold. Also in the parish is Mere Hall, owned by the Bearcroft family for over 600 years. The half-timber house was built in 1560. We can find marriage records of those who worked for the family. Emma Day, a domestic servant of Mere Hall, married to George Phillips. Another domestic servant Elizabeth Hyde married Charles Caldicott in 1893