Church of Ireland Prerogative Court of Armagh Marriage Bonds

The Prerogative Court of Armagh covered all of Ireland. The moneyed segment of mainly Protestant society had their marriages recorded through this court. These Marriage License Bonds (1710-1849) are on microfilm at the Family History Library (FHL #100876). The original records were destroyed in 1922, but several Irish genealogists had worked with the original records prior to their destruction. The resulting works list only the groom, the bride and the year.

Two collections provide details missing from the indexes, such as the residence of the groom and the bride. “Betham’s Genealogical Abstracts from Prerogative Marriage Licenses, 1629-1810” (FHL #100874-75), abstracted by Sir William Betham is at the National Archives of Ireland: www.nationalarchives.ie  Important details about this collection can be found in David E. Rencher’s three part article “Sir William Betham Collection” published in The Septs in 2010 and 2011. This is the journal of The Irish Genealogical Society International: www.irishgenealogical.org  The second, “Abstracts of Prerogative Marriage Licenses of Ireland, 1629-1858” (FHL #100167-68), extracted by Denis O’Callaghan Fischer, is at the Genealogical Office: www.nli.ie/en/intro/heraldry-introduction.aspx  The Fischer Collection does have its own bride’s index (1629-1820) at the end of the Genealogical Office’s MS 421 (FHL #100167 item 1).

These Prerogative Court marriage record abstracts may not be as informative as you would like. However, they do open up other sources such as the Registry of Deeds, surviving wills and other records from which the upper classes can be documented within.