Lincolnshire Marriage Bonds and Allegations

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Transcription and conventions used

This database consists of 20,759 entries. It was compiled from the original Bonds and Allegations deposited in the Lincolnshire Archives, and covers the years 1628 to 1782. The information in each record of the database is an abstract of all available information that could reasonably be included - it is not in all cases, a full transcription.

All the bonds are "Lincolnshire" bonds. Usually the places outside Lincolnshire where marriages were to take place (Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, Hertfordshire etc.) were in the old Diocese of Lincoln, however, there are some places specified which are in counties that were not, e.g. Yorkshire. See Coverage section for further details.

A single record in the database comprises the following fields - there may be more information in the original record: -

  • Surname of 1st spouse - Generally only complete surnames have been included, however some partial surnames (missing letters represented by a "-" [dash] and blank entries have been included when the corresponding Surname of the other intended spouse is complete.
  • Forenames - Partial (missing letters represented by a "-" [dash] or blank forename entries have been included.
  • Status - the marital status of the first intended spouse. A letter “S” denotes Single status, “W” denotes Widower/Widow. This field can be blank when the status is not given.
  • Age - For Age a number of compromises have been made:
    • There are some cases where age in the bond is given as “under 21”. In these cases age 20 has been used and “under 21” added in the Comments field
    • Not included is the "+" where the bond says "upwards of 21" etc. so these ages must be taken as approximate, and 21 could mean somewhere between 21 and 70!
    • When an age is unclear this field has been left blank and a reference made in the Comments field to what could be deciphered. (E.g. Groom age unclear (3?))
    • This field can also be blank when an age has not been given.
  • of Parish - Entries can be a "Y" if the person is of one of the parishes given in the Parish column or "N" if they are not. Blank if their place of residence was not given, or if it was not specific enough to determine what to put in this column
  • Parish - The parish or parishes given on the bond or allegation as the place or places where the marriage was to take place. If no parish was given, or was missing, and the marriage could not be found elsewhere, "Not Stated" has been entered.
    Some of the intended marriages were to take place in other counties and where this is the case the Chapman County code has been suffixed to the Parish name. Some of the intended marriages specified more than one place for the marriage and there are some cases where these places are each in different Counties. See Coverage section for Counties recorded.
  • Surname of 2nd spouse - Generally only complete surnames have been included, however some partial surnames (missing letters represented by a “-” [dash] and blank entries have been included when the corresponding other spouse's surname is complete.
  • Forenames - Partial (missing letters represented by a "-" [dash] or blank forename entries have been included.
  • Status - Describes the marital status of the intended spouse. A letter “S” denotes Single staus, “W” denotes Widower/Widow. This field can be blank when the status is not given.
  • Age - For Age the same compromises have been made for both spouses.
  • of Parish - "Y" if the person is of one of the parishes given in the Parish field or "N" if they are not. Blank if their place of residence was not given, or if it was not specific enough to determine what to put in this column
  • Year - The Year of the bond. The dates must be considered "old style" before 1752 as the bonds are indexed by year from 25th March to 24th March
  • Comments - Used to record variations of spelling of the surnames, aliases, differences in other information such as ages in bonds and allegations where there are two documents for one entry, etc.
  • "see allegation" indicates that the complete allegation contains additional information not included in this index.
  • "Marriage Index" indicates that information has been added from the Lincolnshire Family History Society Marriage Indexes.
  • Lincoln Archives
    Document Ref - Examples:
    "Alleg 4/72" is the reference to an Allegation Book (Alleg 4) and a Page Number (72). These are all in Latin, and many of the pages are "repaired" by being covered by brown paper! The Allegations contain information other than what is in the database such as whether parents had given permission, whether parents were alive or dead etc. and sometimes the information differs from the bond (where there is one).


    "MB 1628/101" is the reference to a bond, a single sheet of paper, or sometimes two or three pieces of paper - with the same reference as noted in the comments column. MB = Marriage Bond, 1628 is the year and 101 is the reference to the individual bond. Many of the Bonds are in a bad condition (also noted in the comments column) and they are filmed up to 1811. However, some of the very fragile ones, some of which are in small pieces, will not have been filmed. Where there is a Bond and also an entry in the Allegations Books to the same event the information has been amalgamated for the database, and this is when "See Allegations" appears in the comments column.
    There are two odd ones, one found on the back of an inventory and another found on the back of an administration document, with the appropriate references given.

Coverage

No attempt has been made to list geographical coverage by Parish within each County, since many records give more than one alternate Parish, and as stated above some alternative Parishes are in different Counties. Some of the intended marriages specified more than one place for the marriage and there are some cases where these places are each in different Counties, but the overall coverage is as follows:

CountyNo. of entries

Cambridgeshire

 1
Hertfordshire 2
Huntingdonshire 7
Leicestershire 50
Lincolnshire 20,607
Norfolk 1
Northamptonshire 28
Nottinghamshire 10
Rutland 49
Suffolk 1
Yorkshire 3

Checking

All the entries have been checked.

Grouping

There is no grouping within this database.

Abbreviations and Codes

  • Chapman County Codes have been used in the Parish field.

Contact details

How to buy

A CD containing the database plus the full abstracts from the Allegations Books is being prepared for publication in the future, please refer to the web site: www.lincolnshirefhs.org.uk for current status.

Copyright and disclaimer

© Trustees of the Lincolnshire Family History Society.

While every care has been taken in the preparation of the index users are advised to view the originals of the appropriate Bonds and Allegations (or facsimiles thereof, e.g. microfilm) and to form their own interpretation. The Lincolnshire Family History Society accepts no liability for any errors or omissions that remain (although they would welcome notification of alternative interpretations of the registers.)

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