16 January 2013

Ancestry adds UK, Civil Divorce Records, 1858-1911


UK, Civil Divorce Records, 1858-1911 are indexed records from The (UK) National Archives, Kew, Surrey that followed the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act.
According to the TNA description:
Files of papers arising from petitions for divorce, judicial separation, declarations of legitimacy, applications for protection of a wife's earnings, etc, in the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes and Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice. Some later files also relate to appeals from decisions of magistrates' courts in matrimonial causes….
In most cases the files have been weeded and contain only minutes, pleadings and decrees, but in certain selected suits, illustrating particular kinds of proceedings, papers have been preserved in their entirety.
The end date for records in this database is determined by privacy laws. These records also include petitions for separation or to have a marriage nullified.
Records indicate who filed the petition and who the respondent(s) was/were. They may also provide a short history of the marriage (including addresses), the grounds for the divorce petition with some details (such as names, times, and places associated with adultery or desertion), terms of judgment, and other details including a copy of the marriage certificate.

Ancestry indicate there are 68,124 records in the database, each appears to be in the index twice, for both the petitioner and respondent.

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