In 1582, William Shakespeare's name appears on a marriage certificate at Trinity Church along with his wife Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a landowner in nearby Shottery. The two became parents to Susanna seven months later. A birth certificate in 1585 naming Shakespeare father to twins Hamnet and Judith provides the last record of the life he led before he left for London to join a theater company. As far as anyone can tell, Shakespeare left for London in 1585 or 1586, and his name disappears from all records for several years.
In 1592, a theater critic contemporary of Shakespeare's wrote a scathing review of a play that lists William Shakespeare as a weak and unpromising player. From then on, however, the existing reviews are increasingly positive and increasingly about Shakespeare's writing rather than his acting. By 1595 Shakespeare had attained enough of a stronghold in the London theater world to become a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a popular London acting company.
In 1596, the same year that his father achieved peerage, Shakespeare's only son Hamnet died. The following year William Shakespeare returned to Stratford and bought the grandest house in town, an elegant estate called New Place. Back in London, Shakespeare participated in the design and construction of the Globe Theater, which opened on Bankside in 1599.
