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Are Church records identical to official marriage certificates?

I have a Uk marriage certificate(1929). The grooms brother was a witness, however the certificate shows an initial and then family surname. This initial doesnt match up to any of the family. All the family had two names and my thought is that maybe he didnt like his first name and chose to use his second name. Would the Church have the full name of the witness or is it too trivial to bother with? How does one access a Church record ? I am trying to research the whole family and had what I tthought all the siblings names.

Public Comments

1. No detail should ever be forgotten. However I wouldn't spend to much time trying to locate a person only on an initial used on one document. I would instead keep it in mind when searching through other documents in case it pops up again. Your thoughts on the use of the initial could very well be the case and you may never know the definitive answer.
2. Like anything or anyone else, the church can keep or ask for whatever record it wants. If we assume that the two records were made at the same time (only minutes apart) then I would think they would both be the same. I would think, however, that you can get into some real handwriting problems. I've seen that myself on records. I've also seen names misspelled. Don't assume that everyone knows how to spell names properly either, either the newlyweds or the person preparing the certificate. Lastly, usually the person preparing the certificate asks the questions, someone responds, maybe that person is understood properly and maybe not, and at the time does anyone care? Of course not. You're the last person they are thinking about....100 or 150 years later looking up information. They really don't care! And, if the person in question is only a witness, now they really, really don't care. You can check the church record, but it may be quite trivial. How you do it depends upon the church. Contact them and ask.
3. No not at all, Have a look at www.ancestry.co.uk where you can see the Birth Death and Marriage index's If you know his birth date then have a look, he may be using a middle name for some reason, a lot of people do.
4. Church records in the UK, are stored in the Archives.