The widest marriage certificate I've seen

[At home in NZ]

My own marriage certificate issued by a church in 1968 is wider than an A4 sheet.
Ditto my parents marriage certificate issued by a church in 1942.
Ditto my maternal uncle's cert issued by a different denomination in 1964.
I have another one in my collection issued in 1927.

The above examples are what I call originals (although they are certified copies) because they have the actual signatures in them and do not have given at the general register office followed by an application number at top right..

 

[jorghes]

The widest one I have seen, or I have, is a QLD marriage register entry for my great grandparents, I only have a scan, but at 100% it's almost as wide as an A3 sheet (two A4s), although there is a lot of space for the margins!

And that's only the top half of the book...

 

[Helen7]

I have a wide marriage certificate of my grandparents' church wedding in 1912 (complete with penny stamp). It's what got me started in tracing my family history.

 

[peter]

I don't know when the GRO started issuing certificates in A4 format, but it must be fairly recently (in genealogical terms). My own birth and marriage certificates, as well as all of the certificates I've obtained from local register offices during my research are the wide kind, but without the added picture at the left (which is what made the example in the newsletter so unusual).

I've subsequently been sent a picture of another certificate which also has a picture of the church, but is taller rather than wider - I hope to feature this in the next newsletter. If any forum members have similar certificates I'd be interested in seeing them.

 

[jorghes]

I don't know when the GRO started issuing certificates in A4 format, but it must be fairly recently (in genealogical terms). My own birth and marriage certificates, as well as all of the certificates I've obtained from local register offices during my research are the wide kind, but without the added picture at the left (which is what made the example in the newsletter so unusual).

Australia switched to the A4 certificates in the late 1930s, early 1940s - I just had a dig around in my catalogue of certificates and that's when they seem to swop from double-page spread and handwritten to single page and typed.

 

[At home in NZ]

I've subsequently been sent a picture of another certificate which also has a picture of the church,

I hadn't realised the picture of the church was part of the certificate because you said in the newsletter,: The parish church of St Luke, Miles Platting, Lancashire (shown in the picture accompanying the certificate)
It also looks separate from the certificate.
None of the certificates I listed in post #1 have a church attached and I had never seen one like it until the newsletter.

 

[Pauline]

I don't know when the GRO started issuing certificates in A4 format, but it must be fairly recently (in genealogical terms).

I don't know exactly when either, but yesterday I was looking at a marriage certificate I obtained from the GRO in 1992, and that was in A4 format.

 

[PhilGee]

I have two different size death certificates for my parents. The earlier one (2005) is 42x21 cm and the later (2007) is A4 - but double-sided; both from the same office. There are "duplicate" boxes for some entries - one for the "Welsh" version and one for the "English" version.

 

[At home in NZ]

I don't know exactly when either

Found this on the net:
The UK adopted A4 paper in 1959. In 1975, the United Nations (which was established after the end of the second world war) adopted the paper format as an ISO standard. Within two years after its adoption by the UN, A4 printer paper was being used in more than 88 countries across the world.

Perhaps we should be looking at it from a different angle. The church certificates in post #1 are all originals, meaning they were provided to the bride and groom after the ceremony.
In my collection I have certificates obtained from the GRO for marriages that took place in church in 1908 and in 1916. The GRO issued copies on 7 May 2013 and they are on A4 paper. As A4 paper has not been invented at the time of the marriages the originals would have been on the wider paper which I suspect is the old foolscap size.

I conclude that the GRO has issued certificates on A4 paper since it came into general use.

 

[Susan48]

I have the death certificate of a great-aunt who died in December 1978, which is in A4 format.

 

[Pauline]

I conclude that the GRO has issued certificates on A4 paper since it came into general use.

Most GRO issued certificates incorporate a photocopy of the relevant entry from the quarterly returns, so there is also the question of when they were able to reduce a wide format entry to fit on A4 paper.

 

[peter]

I hadn't realised the picture of the church was part of the certificate because you said in the newsletter,: The parish church of St Luke, Miles Platting, Lancashire (shown in the picture accompanying the certificate)
It also looks separate from the certificate.

Technically it isn't part of the certificate, even though it is printed on the same sheet of paper - that's why I used the word 'accompanying'. I didn't consider the possibility that some readers might think it was a separate sheet of paper.

the originals would have been on the wider paper which I suspect is the old foolscap size. I conclude that the GRO has issued certificates on A4 paper since it came into general use.

There is no one date on which A4 paper came into general use - it was a gradual process. I suspect that - as Pauline suggests - it was more to do with technology. My mother's original death certificate (from 1976) is A4 size, but my marriage certificate (from 2003) is 14 in wide.

The older certificates weren't foolscap size (13in by 8in) - they were wider (about 14 1/2 wide).

 

[Pauline]

My mother's original death certificate (from 1976) is A4 size, but my marriage certificate (from 2003) is 14 in wide.

Wasn't it in 1969 when the information required for birth and death registrations changed, with birth and death certificates then also changing to an A4 portrait format?

Marriage registers and certificates, however, continued to use the wide landscape format.

 

[peter]

It could well have been 1969 as that was the year that the birth date of the deceased was first included on death certificates (from June according to Ancestral Trails).