Last week I made the unhappy discovery that the Vicar is meant to write his marriage registers in indelible ink. It’s obvious when you think about it – you don’t want your marriage certificate to fade after a few years, but unfortunately we hadn’t thought about it and hadn’t had it pointed out either. This information wasn’t included in ordination training, nor in the diocesan training for curates (as far as the Vicar remembers, anyway). Thankfully (and rather sadly), in our sort of parish there aren’t many marriages at all and those that there are aren’t often in church, so not too many documents were filled out in evil biro before we discovered this.
Having found out about the need for the special ink, I made some enquiries and have the following information for anyone else who is similarly underinformed about writing legal documents:
- Apparently, ink should be to ISO 12757-2.
- You can get pens with this special international standard ink from Staedtler (who incidentally make the world’s best felttips, in Vicarage experience).
- Traditionally, Registrar’s Ink has been used. The original recipe contains iron gall and clogs up fountain pens. You can buy a fountain pen for your registers and flush it out if you prefer a scratchy pen to Staedtler’s ones. [Late edit: A reader has ordered from the Registrar’s Ink website and his pen was a Parker vector, supplied with a Parker quink convertor.]
- Registrar’s ink does not fade from documents, nor from carpet, in the unhappy experience of one of my informants.
Hopefully this blogpost will prevent the writing of a few registers in dodgy ink in the future. I suspect that as the number of church weddings continues to decrease, clergy will be less familiar with this requirement and fading ink registers may become more numerous.
The Vicar's Wife 
I’m a bit addicted to Uniball’s Super Ink pens. They come in either coloured like this set:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002OL2OJ8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=utf8utf16-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B002OL2OJ8
or plain black like these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002XZLGXA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=nehmp3-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B002XZLGXA
or if you want a nice professional-looking one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001QLILNU/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=isoutf8-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B001QLILNU
My son used this last one to practice writing his name while I was asleep… and now it has disappeared!
DH has always used permanent black ink cartridges from Parker. No idea if they fit the bill … but they do occasionally leak into a shirt pocket so I’ve tested the permanency on more than one occasion. I think we’ll be OK!
I feel I ought to expand on the carpet comment…
The registrar’s ink in my Dad’s church was kept on a high shelf in the vestry. Almost predictably, said ink was one day dislodged from its position and landed (without lid) on the vestry carpet. Drops of it ended up on my mother, but fortunately none of it landed on the clean communion cloths she was about to put back into the cupboard. The ink stain’s still there.
Genealogists of the future will thank you for having discovered the evil-ness of biro!
have passed the above information onto the husband and the churchwarden….thank you!! ( weddings start next week!)
Oh dear. I never thought of this, and when the Archdeacon made his ‘Visitation’ the other week, and inspected all the records, he didn’t mention it either. I shall tell the Rev Fred ASAP, as wedding season is upon him (weddings in all the sister parishes every weekend – but sadly not one at our little church, undoubtedly because the average age of our villagers is 73).
Interestingly, this is something that Colin must have been taught by his training incumbent – I assumed all anglican clergy were aware of this. Gratefull thanks to Malcolm Potter for his thorough curate training in practical as well as spiritual matters.
Registrars ink makes it harder to alter certificates.
Our wedding cert is badly faded AND it was done at StAG. Tsk tsk.
Eeeek! Will have to look ours out… I’m sure it was done in fountain pen, though.
Fountain pen does not mean safe. Registrar’s (iron gall) ink use acid that eat paper after time (few century). The best ink I know are Nano carbon based made in Japan or made by Noodler’s (USA). Nooldler’s bulletproof and Warden’s series can survive carpet cleaner or bleach until it will destroy the paper. I don’t work noodler’s. I’m just a University student in archival and record management.
I discovered this when taking on the writing up of the registers, and the filing of said with the local Registrar. I got a severe dressing down for 20 year bad practice by the Registrar and a lesson in what to do… like you always have to write the date as a word (eg. twenty-fifth) and the words “years” after the age of the people concerned.
Perhaps I shall follow your example post what I was taught for the benefit of others.
A strange phenomenon is that registrar’s ink starts off looking far more faded than permanent black Quink ink. It’s a sort of grey-black. However, as I empty the ink from my pen into the registrar’s bottle, I must be gradually moving it away from the ISO standard. What a terrible thought ……:o)
How weird. I was about to make exactly the same comment (mine will be a mix of registrar’s and permanent black Quink). And my name is Rachel too
Our church has only conducted 5 weddings since 2006 so we still have the same bottle of registrars ink ordered from the registry office with the same Parker fountain pen as shown in the post. Successive entries look decidedly more and more faced over the years. So “wet” registrars ink *does* change over time it seems, but the first entry hasn’t faded. So, folks, we therefore duly conclude that *dry* registrars ink doesn’t fade.
If you need alteration and fadeproof ink you could use Noodler’s black or Noodler’s Bad Black Moccasin for fountain pen. They are made to resist fraud. The last one even resist attack using laser to erase it.
Also, you don’t need an FP for writing using this kind of ink, like registrars or Noodler could be used with a roller ball pen:
http://www.gouletpens.com/Noodlers_Large_Black_Rollerball_Pen_p/n16060.htm
Thanks for your comments Francois. Hopefully we’ll all be writing unerasable marriage certificates now!
Thanks for this discussion, I realized that I had been doing the registers in permanent black rather than registrar’s ink and I was in a panic. For anyone out there who has done this, did you tell the Registrar or wait to let them find out – wondering if they have to note it down somewhere.
Word of caution: permanent marker are not permanent on paper! You can alter them using some product or Sun. You need ink made for documents.
All this ink are permanent on paper but not all are black or turn black. If I specify bottle it is because they have cartridge with the same name that not permanent! All of those for fountain pen are bottle version!
My first suggestion will be Noodler’s bulletproof black, Platinum Carbon Black or ESS Registrar’s Blue-Black. Platinum Carbon Black is more expensive but it is proven it could last over 500 years because of is composition made of nano carbon. It is like india ink in a friendly version for fountain pen. The two other are proven good and not pricey.
Few names for fountain pen:
Acid-free ink (pH neutral)—-
Noodler’s bulletproof familly of ink
Noodler’s Eternal familly of ink
Noodler’s Warden’s familly of ink
Noodler’s Polar familly of ink
De Atramentis Document Ink
Pigment ink (pH neutral)—-
Platinum Carbon Black
Platinum Pigmented Rose
Platinum Pigmented Sepia
Sailor Kiwa-Guro Pigmented Nano Black
Sailor Sei-Boku Pigmented Nano Blue-Black
Acidic ink (Iron Gall)—-
ESS Registrar’s Blue-Black
Montblanc Blue-Black (bottle)
Diamine Regisrar’s Blue-Black
Lamy Blue-Black (bottle)
Rohrer & Klingner – Eisen-Gallus-Tinte Salix
Rohrer & Klingner – Eisen-Gallus-Tinte Scabiosa
Thanks for this info!
When I worked in Archaology we were always told to write records with the black ink in yellow-cased biros as it was the most permanent and waterproof. It certainly was waterproof as many wet excavations can testify. For marking finds we always used Quink black ink. We were told never to use blue or blue-black as the blue isn’t as water and light proof.
Of course, the best ink to use would be ink made from oak-galls rather than iron. After all, all tose medieval manuscripts are still easy to read after many hundreds of years.
Hi. I am amazed that this has not been picked up when you made your marriage returns. They would surely not be in the correct ink. Every non Anglican authorised person (AP) gets a booklet on how to fill out registers and it states clearly that you are in Big trouble if you don’t use the authorised ink.
As an AP in the Methodist Church I have used the correct ink for 30 years because we do not have a legal right to marry people and if we do not do as we are told then our AP can be revoked.
By the way if you don’t use the correct ink you can be fined up to £1000.
I too am an AP and was delighted to read this blog as I find my good quality fountain pen doesn’t run smoothly with registrars ink. Have the alternatives been approved by the Registration Office?
Buy Diamine ink from Liverpool. Good product and good service by mail order
[…] out there do not fully up understand the rules, so there is no hope for us. See this Writing Right: Recording For Posterity | The Vicar's Wife After discussions I have had in my local area and supplied pens for the special occasion I have […]
I am a psychiatrist and I write a lot for many purposes. I swear by Diamine registrar’s ink. One can use a highlighter pen over it with no smudging and it does not block a fountain pen