Find your ancestors in Norfolk Banns

Learn about these records

Explore this collection of Norfolk parish registers for banns and marriages. Discover the announcement of your ancestor’s intention to marry. The records will give you the three banns dates, your ancestor’s intended spouse’s name. The marriage records will give your ancestors’ marriage date, residence at the time of their marriage and their witnesses.

What can these records tell me?

The records include both a transcript and image of the parish register. The details in each transcript may vary depending on the register type. Most transcripts will include the following:

Banns

Name
Sex
Residence
First banns date
Banns year
Parish
Diocese
Spouse’s name
Spouse’s parish
County and Country
Archive and archive reference

Image

It is always exciting to view the original record source. The registers would include additional information such as

Second and third banns dates
Couple’s marital statuses
Who performed the banns

Marriage

Name
Sex
Age
Birth year
Residence
Marriage date
Parish and diocese
Spouse’s name
Spouse’s age
Spouse’s parish
Father's name
Spouse’s father’s name
County and Country
Archive and archive reference

Image

It is an amazing experience to view the original record created at the time of your ancestor’s marriage. In later records, you can see your ancestors’ signature. Some images reveal even further details about the marriage, such as, who performed the ceremony, the couples’ and their fathers’ occupations, the names of witnesses and the bride’s surname. Discovering your female ancestor’s original surname can be a vital tool in breaking down brick walls.

Discover more about these records

The East Anglia county of Norfolk was first settled by the Angles in the 5th century. They established control in the region and separated the area by north folk and south folk, hence the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. By the 16th century, Norfolk’s county town, Norwich, became the second largest city in England. To discover more about Norfolk search the Norfolk Chronicle and Norfolk News, both available in Findmypast newspapers.

Banns records document the three dates on which the banns were announced in the parish church. This practice was to give time to notify the congregation of the intended marriage in case there were any objections or known impediments. If you find a banns record, this is not a confirmation that a marriage did take place.

The Norfolk banns are digitised copies of the original registers held at the Norfolk Record Office. The records include more than 450,000 names across the county.

The Norfolk Marriages contain excellently digitised images of the original parish registers, which you can attach to your family tree. The parish registers are located at the Norfolk Record Office. The records with images were provided by The National Archives and created by the College of Arms, the official heraldic authority for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and much of the Commonwealth including Australia and New Zealand. The records will provide you with details found in the original parish register. Marriage records are highly valuable for family historians. As a source, they uncover the names of the next generation back, plus they tell you where your ancestor started their new family life. You can use the parish information to then search electoral registers or census records to find out more.

For a full list of all the parishes, view the Norfolk Parish List located in the Useful Links and Resources section.

Norfolk County is on the East coast of England and shares a border with Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Suffolk. Its county town is Norwich. There are more than 183,000 marriage records from the county town. In the 16th century, Norwich became England’s second largest and wealthiest city. As a coastal county near both France and Holland, Norfolk enjoyed the prosperity of trade. The coastline stretches almost 100 miles from Hopton on Sea to the Wash.