In response to the poll results, the search form now has a check box labeled “include Marriage Bonds (for entire diocese) when searching Marriages in a specific district”. The search now works as follows:

• If you select Marriages - All Districts, the Marriage Bonds are also automatically searched.
• If you select Marriages and specify a district (for example, Sunderland), and you leave the new checkbox checked (as it is by default), the search will check for marriages in only Sunderland district AND marriage bonds anywhere in Durham Diocese
• If you select Marriages and specify a district (for example, Sunderland), and you uncheck the new checkbox, the search will check for marriages in Sunderland district only.
• If you select All Parish Records or All Records combined with All Districts, when the search gets around to searching for marriages, it will follow the above rules.
• If you select Marriage Bonds, the checkbox is ignored and all marriage bonds are searched.

Why is this useful? Well, most of the time, when you are looking for someone’s marriage, you probably do want to see the marriage bonds as well, so you don’t miss any possible marriages. However, if you are searching for a common name in a specific place, it may be overwhelming or confusing to see marriage bonds from all over the diocese along with marriages in the specified district. You may want to first search for Marriages in the specified district with the new box unchecked, and after you have explored those, then run a new search in just Marriage Bonds.