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Today a key piece of information about my 4th great grandmother Sarah Osment Smyth came to my attention when @ValerieFennell wrote:

I have Sarah Osment Smyth as witness at the marriage of James Smith, Felter and Hatter of Tooley Street Bermondsey to Sarah Jones on the 30th January 1787. Sarah's brother Nathaniel also a Felter & Hatter was the other witness.I would be grateful if anyone could shine a light on this, I can't find the parents of James.

It reminded me that people often say "don't forget to check the witnesses", and I usually try to figure out the relationship of the witnesses to a marriage that involves the people I am interested in.

In this case it is a marriage I might never have been interested in except for now learning that Sarah Osment Smyth witnessed it.

I would now like to try and find out what other marriages Sarah and her future husband John Stacy, who was also from Bermondsey may have witnessed.

I am aware of a former Q&A, Status of Ted Wildy's UK Marriage Witness Index?, which discusses searching marriage indexes using witnesses but Sarah and John are not from Cornwall, and no marriages that Sarah witnessed show up in FREEREG.

Is there any index of London marriages that includes Bermondsey which can be searched using witnesses?

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    I don't think you are searching for marriages in Greater London, as that would have to be after 1965 when Greater London was created. Bermondsey was in Surrey until 1889, then London between 1889-1965. Based on the example given I think you are looking to search marriage records for Surrey by witness. I'm quite certain no resource of this kind exists, but for the sake of making this answerable perhaps it would be best to generalise this question to "London" (which includes those parts of Surrey and Middlesex later considered to be Greater London).
    – Harry V. ♦
    Commented Sep 15, 2016 at 1:02
  • @HarryVervet I've dropped "Greater" - hopefully your answer now can be supplemented by another at a future date to say that such a search has just become available :-) Feel free to tweak the geography in my question to fit what you think the question should be to make it as answerable as possible.
    – PolyGeo ♦
    Commented Sep 15, 2016 at 1:16
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    I've added an answer to the Marriage Witness Index question with an update. genealogy.stackexchange.com/q/2724/1006 But it turns out my "new" info was already in the comments on that question. That question could use some cleanup, eventually.
    – Jan Murphy ♦
    Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 6:16

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