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Kent Online Parish Clerks




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The Answer - Marriage Register Codes

The marriage register codes are the numbers that were assigned to the various churches and register offices throughout England and Wales as found in the index of births, marriages and deaths at the Local Registrar's offices. These numbers do not apply to the registrations once those have been forwarded on for capitulation to the Office of National Statistics at Kew, Surrey. The most readily accessible marriage register codes of which I am aware relate to those assigned throughout Kent, England and can be found in the entries indexed on the Kent Registration web site at


Kent County Council BMD website

Please note Kent does not now include the Medway towns of Chatham, Gillingham, and Rochester; or, the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich all of which hold their own records going back to the 1st July 1837.

There are two different websites that have Excel files containing an index to the marriage register codes. The first link includes the SS31/3 code which represents events that occurred specifically at The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Sexburgha church on Minster, Sheppey.

The second link also is to an Excel file containing marriage register codes but, in some respects, is not as complete as the first. Yet, in others, it is more complete. For instance, it contains the register office codes, in particular SMILT for Sittingbourne, Milton Register Office. The numeral 9 would refer to the book in use at the time of the marriage.


Faded Genes website


Paternoster website

The codes used to denote the places of registration of births and deaths is not included on either of the above two websites.