Lancashire Banns & Marriages

Each result will provide you a transcript of the vital details found in the original records. Many results will also provide you will an image of that original records. Transcripts will include all or some of the following details:

• First name(s)

• Last name

• Sex

• Age

• Birth year

• Marital status

• Year

• Date

• Place

• Spouse’s name

• Spouse’s sex

• Spouse’s age

• Spouse’s birth year

• Spouse’s marital status

• Father’s name

• Spouse’s father’s name

This vast collection of banns and marriage records from Lancashire will provide you with the important facts needed to expand your family tree. The collection includes records from the Dioceses of Manchester.

Parish records are a vital part of researching your family history. The requirement for parish priests to maintain a weekly register of baptisms, marriages, and deaths began in 1538 following King Henry VIII's split from the Roman Catholic Church. A fine was put in place for failure to comply, and from 1733 onwards, entries had to be written in English instead of Latin.

When available, these records detail whether a couple was married by banns or license. Banns were announcements made in church on three consecutive Sundays prior to the wedding date. The announcements were made to give the congregation an opportunity to voice any objection to the marriage.

However, a marriage license could be obtained for a fee if a couple wished to waive the customary reading of the banns. There are several reasons why a couple might want to do so, such as the need to expedite the wedding date. Along with a marriage license fee, the couples were required to sign a declaration stating that there were no lawful impediments to their marriage.

Most the records in this collection were provided in partnership with the Lancashire County Council, but a small percentage were supplied to us by Manchester City Council’s Libraries, Information and Archives; Liverpool and South West Lancashire Family History Society; Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society; independent researcher Paul Gaskell; and FamilySearch.

The records have all been pulled together to create the Lancashire Banns and Marriages, but were previously published on Findmypast as the following:

• England, Greater Manchester Marriages 1570-1936

• Liverpool Marriages

• Manchester Marriage Register

• Marriages Prestwich, Lancashire

• Wrightington Marriages

• Wrightington Banns

Giles Shaw Transcripts for Oldham St Mary 1662-1826

These transcripts comprise records for Oldham St. Mary. They include around 160,000 names and date c1662-1826.

John Owen Transcripts for Flixton, Gorton and Newton 1571-1785

These transcripts comprise records for Gorton, Newton and Flixton. They include around 30,000 names and cover c1571-1785.

Wrightington

These records are from Wrightington Hall, the ancestral home of the Wrightington family up until the death of Sir Edward Wrightington in 1658. Starting in the 1680s, Wrightington Hall kept a Roman Catholic priest on-site. Their private chapel was dedicated to St Joseph and could be used by the family, employees, and tenants. However, with the erection of St Joseph’s Church in 1894, the chapel was utilized less frequently. The County Record Office in Preston maintains the Hall chapel registers.

• If you are having trouble finding your ancestor, trying searching using name variants. Occasionally, there are spelling errors on the original records or from when the records were transcribed that are missed in searches when name variants aren’t used.

• Consult the parish list linked to in the Useful links and resources section for a full list of places included in this collection.

• If you are having difficulty searching by your ancestor’s full name, try searching using name variants. Additionally, try searching with wildcards such as an asterisk (*) and a question mark (?) to broaden your search results.

• Even if you’re certain about the date you ancestor was married, try searching on a range of years to account for any mistakes in the recording or transcribing of the dates.