The very first marriage certificate that I ever sent for was for my Great Grandparents Edward Henry Jordan and Phoebe Bird, they had eleven children in total, and as I was very new to Family History I was so very disappointed when after a couple of weeks I received the certificate and both the fathers names were missing from it ! 
So frustrating to a newbe..But actually it made me realize that it wasn’t all plain sailing this Family history stuff and you come across many many brick walls that have to be broken down, and it also always leaves you with many many questions that you never seem to have answered however many certificates and records you manage to attach to your particular Family Tree.
I have already written a couple of Blogs about the first 2 of Edward Henry and Phoebe’s children,      ALICE  and PHOEBE
There are niggling things about them though that I would love to know, one of these little questions was who were the two people that were witnesses at their wedding, it took place at St Stephens Church in the Parish of Spitalfields on 10th March 1863…… After their first 2 children were born.
I have looked at neighbours or family members, in case they were in-laws maybe..but by sheer chance I was looking through the records and realized that now the original picture of the record book when they got married was on ancestry.co.uk, and I hadn’t even looked at it, purely because I already had the certificate..and what did I find..a revelation..the 2 chaps who witnessed their marriage were John Bell, who was the Bridegroom of the marriage before theirs and George Lynn, the Bridegroom of the marriage after theirs !! they were both able to sign their names, (unlike my Great Grandparents) so they obviously were asked……..mystery solved at last.

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Its taught me that sometimes we need to look at the bigger picture, when looking at the records…..

I do, like a lot of people look at neighbours in the same & ajoining streets on census records, when looking for missing family members, and often look at other people on the same page just in case I might find twins in Birth records or other family members dying at the same time in Death records, but this just honestly never occurred to me..