Let's examine the certificate which we already have in hand and see what we can learn from it.
You may want to download the GRO's handy Guide to Marriage Certificates.
When looking at the information on any record, don't just take the information at face value. Look at what you have, and think about the other research questions that lead from this information. You might not be able to leap directly from this piece of direct evidence about a marriage to a piece of direct evidence about a birth, and even if you could, there's no guarantee that any of the information on these certificates is accurate.
- Is this parish the bride's regular parish, or a temporary one?
- Is the residence address for either the bride or groom their usual address, or is it a temporary one? Looking to see if Wigan is a market town or not might be a clue to the answer to both of these questions.
- Can you figure out the identity of the witnesses and their relationship to the bride and/or groom?
- What shop employs Doris Reardon?
- Who else is listed with the bride's and groom's addresses in the electoral rolls for this area?
- Can you find the Banns for this marriage, or the parish register, to compare them to this certificate?
- Have you searched for the father of the groom in the 1911 Census, and then searched the neighborhood, to see if there are any Reardons living nearby? The groom's family ought to be easier to find, given his father's occupation. There may not be any clues that would lead you to the bride's family, but until you've looked, you can't know.
Go beyond the comfortable confines of census + GRO indexes and look in other records. One of the things I recommend for genealogists on the cheap is to sign up for the free email newsletters of every genealogy company, whether you can afford to subscribe to the service or not. If you make a list of things you need to search for, you can be ready to take advantage of offers when they show up. The British Newspaper Archive recently sent me a promo to get a month's subscription for 1 GBP -- it's an offer that comes up again and again so it's worth keeping an eye out.
I also run test searches for records I already have on multiple sites -- that alerts me to problems with the index on a new site, or if a site has odd ways of displaying information in the detail/record page or search results. (Ex: in the USA, you can get very different information by searching the Social Security Death Index, depending on whose site you use.) You can also learn a lot about a vendor's site without paying if you look at how many results you get instead of worrying that you can't see the actual results -- see Catch 22: how do you know if a data provider's sub will be valuable to you — before you subscribe?
Newspaper research can be more productive in the US sometimes -- it seems easier to find obituaries in the US papers than in the UK -- but I have found announcements in the UK papers (published in the parents' hometown) about births in the USA -- so you never know what might turn up. That short notice was a critical link that confirmed the family in town A in the UK had moved to town B in the US.
Another 'lucky dip' in the newspaper gave me the address of a couple in 1940, which led me to their 1939 Register entry, with the groom's mother also in the household. I was searching for him in the British Newspaper Archive and the Register because I had his name from another family member's entry in the National Probate Calendar.
Sometimes you have to use indirect evidence and put together a body of evidence. A 'lucky dip' search result about one of your witnesses might lead you to the information you want. When you have an entire body of records about a family, it is easier to see that you have found the right person.
Other resources from the General Register Office:
This may be your couple from the marriage register. Searching for Crankshaw born 1906 I found this Doris (born 1906) in Wigan C.B. with a John in the household:
I searched by address in the 1939 Register in Wigan C.B. but did not see any Crankshaws on Diggle street (Diggle N has not been checked yet).
Searching for John Reardon in Wigan I found this one:
Searching on The Genealogist for possible parents of that John H. Reardon yielded these candidate couples from the Warrington Registration District:
- John Reardon marriage registration Q1 1891 to Louisa Atherton or Mary Burke (the other spouse is Timothy Moriarty) Volume 8C Page 0308
(1939 Register search was carried out before I saw the comment where Danny said he had found the answer.)
