CIVIL REGISTRATION IN ENGLAND
BY Rebecca Richards
I will not go over all the background info in class so I can show you how to use some of the websites.
CIVIL REGISTRATION
Civil Registration began July 1, 1837. Before this time Births, Marriages, and Deaths were kept by the Parishes only. After the introduction of civil registration, Parish records were still kept. You may be able to find your people both in the registration and in the parish. In Civil Registration, the events, Births, Marriages and Deaths were recorded quarterly. The event may have been recorded considerably later than the event took place. January, February and March 1867 are found in March 1867 index. April, May and June were recorded in June and so forth. Parents had 42 days to register the birth for free. The birth could be registered within 6 months for a fine. This made for some creative birth dates. These will be the exceptions not the rule.
When the books were bound they were always put into the same order of districts then bound and numbered. As you start finding your family, you may find that all their page numbers are close together. Keep track of these page numbers. It will help you determine which person is yours if there is a question and it will help with deciphering the numbers if they are hard to read.
BIRTHS
Not all births were registered. Some people believed registration was not necessary if the child was christened. Some clergy were against civil registration and discouraged their parishioners from registering.
Some children were registered late.
Sometimes you will find someone with only a first name when on other records they have a first and middle name. The parents may have changed their minds after the registration. Or they could have two names on the certificate and you never see one of them again. Keep track of the occupation of the father. In most cases this will be consistent with all the children. Sometimes men changed occupations but not if they had a trade as opposed to being a labourer.
If his occupation is soldier or sailor then that gives you a clue into looking into military records.
Obtaining certificates of siblings might give clues to second marriages or might reveal addresses if you haven't found them in the census,
Official records of Adoption did not begin until 1 January 1927.
MARRIAGES
Between 1837 and 1898 the only legal marriages were performed in the Church of England, in a Jewish Synagogue or in Quaker Ceremonies.
Typically a couple was married in the bride's parish, there are exceptions James Hall and Hannah Wells, my great great great grandparents were married in London, James home, but immediately moved to Buckland, Buckinghamshire, Hannah's birth place.
Page 2
Some things to watch for on a certificate
.
OF FULL AGE could be 21 or older.
A labourer typically married around 24 and a professional at 29 or 30. Any Woman who had not heard from her husband in seven years was free to marry again.
If the same address was given for both husband and wife it could have been a boarding house, or relative's home where they were staying just before the marriage.
WITNESSES: Witnesses could be minors as long as they appeared credible. They were usually the same age group as the couple but could be parents or other relatives.
Some couples living together waited years to get married for various reasons. In 1909 non-contributory pensions were introduced and a married man received 1/3 more than a single man. This led to some marriages at this time.
DEATHS
Most burials take place a few days after death. There are exceptions, Reburials, Bodies returned home from a death far away, after an inquest, bodies left for medical research. The registrar had to give a disposal certificate before burial.
Remember the information on a death certificate is second hand knowledge. Question ages ending in 0 or 5 these are probably guesses.
A good researcher finds information about a death as well as births and marriages. This may be the only other time you find the name of an unmarried daughter or find that the name of an informant is a son from a first marriage. Other death documents you might want to look for:
Burial entry in churchyard or cemetery
Cremation record (after 1884)
Doctor's certificates
Funeral home records
Grave register which tells who owns the grave and who all is buried therein
Gravestone inscriptions
Newspaper accounts
Obituaries
Probate records
Look at www.genuki.org.uk or http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/index.php
AVAILIBILTY
The Family History Library in Salt Lake has civil registration on microfiche and on film. I have found these hard to read.
There are now several Internet sites that have the indexes online. We will discuss some of these.
As you go to these sites be sure to use the exact url or go to the family history center website: http://vernalfhc.org/
Under class notes
find this lesson on civil registration and use the links in the lesson.
Once you have the home page for the site, bookmark it or add it to favorites on your computer.
Page 3
Free BMD is free site that has the indexes transcribed. It is a Transcribed by volunteers, it is not
complete and it is a transcription. I have found 1 mistake in all the certificates I have ordered. I use this site first.
Http://www.freebmd.rootsweb.com/
On the home page of free bmd you must scroll down to do your search. The first thing you will see is an advertisement for Ancestry.com. Scroll down to where you see a row of red buttons. Search, view images, information, join freebmd and transcribers page.
SEARCH: This is the button to push to do your actual search.
VIEW IMAGES: Use this guide to let you know about viewing actual images.
INFORMATION: Gives facts about the website.
JOIN FREEBMD: They are always looking for volunteers to transcribe.
TRANSCRIBERS PAGE: Talks about signing up also and other things.
Back to SEARCH:
Here again you will see an ad for Ancestry,com. Scroll down to where you see blank boxes. You must choose either birth, marriage or death. Fill in as little information as possible. Only use Spouse/Mothers surname for a marriage search. If you get no matches take out the spouse name. On a marriage if you come up with what you think may be the correct name, click on the page number to see all the people listed on that page. It could be 2 to 4 people and spouses are always on the same page.
You might want to choose PHONETIC SEARCH ON SURNAME
Then click on find
You will occasionally have problems with the site coming up or you will get a message that the server is busy. Go onto another search and come back in a few minutes.
At the bottom of the search page is a place you can click on to see what percentage of transcriptions have been completed. Look for the blue underlined here.
There is also a place that says “Has our search engine found the record you are seeking?” Click here to learn what to do now
Click here
This gives you information on ordering from the General Record Office (GRO) or from the local registrar. Check out both of these methods. I usually go through the GRO.
The here by the GRO takes you to the GRO home page. At the bottom of this page is a short cut to ordering online. You will need NAME, VOLUME NUMBER, DISTRICT NAME, QUARTER AND YEAR AND PAGE NUMBER AND A CREDIT CARD.
Indexes only tell us names, districts, vol number and page number.
UKBMD
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/index.php
This web site links you to local Family History Societies who are transcribing the indexes from the local registrar offices onto their county pages. They are incomplete but the site is free. Since they are indexed a quick search could save you money. These are transcribed direct from the local registrar not a copy of a copy like the national registers. If you find a name you are looking for, these certificates are 7 lbs instead of 14 lbs. (As an approximation double pounds to get American dollars) Some of the offices will refund some of the fee if they can tell it is the wrong certificate from the references you that you give them i.e. Parents names. Be sure to request a standard birth ( or marriage or death) certificate. The short Certificate lists only the name, sex, date of birth and district. While at this site check out the other services offered in the counties where your people lived.
Page 4
Select the name of the county at the drop down list at the black arrow
Click on County
Let's do Shropshire. As you can see they don't have a county site but link you to several pay sites.
Now search Staffordshire.
This county has a county web page
The first choice that comes up is the county site, some time when you want to explore, scroll down and see what else is available.
At the top of the county page choose, Birth, Marriage, or Death
The next page gives you info on the indexes and the certificates
On the right hand side click on Search the Death Indexes
Read the instructions for the search
You can put in only a last name or even part of name
Then click Display surnames
At the top of the search page is instructions for sending for a certificate. And instructions to check how much has been indexed.
Findmypast
htpp://www.findmypast.com/
This is pay per view site. It is free to view the index, you have to pay a fee to view the images or transcripts.
5lbs (or about $10.00) for 50 units less per unit the more you buy. It take 3 units to view a census page and 1 unit to view a GRO registration page. These are photo copies of the registers not transcriptions.
Let's do a search
go to htpp://www.findmypast.com/
You do need to register for this site. It is free to register and to do a search. You will need to pay by credit card to buy units to actually see results.
Here also you can choose to put in only a surname or parts of a name.
You must choose certain quarters to search. You will need to have some idea of a time period you want to look at. This could be when his name appears in the census for a birth or for a death when you can no longer find him in the census.
As you can see, instead of getting a transcription, you get a photo of an actual page. This is beneficial in some ways. You are not dependent on how someone else read and indexed the name.
You can check for spelling variations you may not have thot of.
You can check different first names.
You might also want to copy that page or write down all the family names on it in case you find you need others of the same family sometime down the road.
At the very top of the results page is a link to the GRO. It is underlined in blue order certificates
Same process once you get to the GRO home page.
Make sure to either copy the page with your person on it or make a note of district, vol number and page number.
Check out all the other databases available on this site.
You could also do a GOOGLE search for civil registration in England for other sites that might have the information
HOW TO FIND YOUR ANCESTOR
Find the correct birth district by finding him on each census. The parish and county should be given on each from 1851 onwards.
Be realistic about the possible date of birth. Use all possible sources not just one, to construct a most likely date range from all estimates and use this to narrow down your search.
Remember that there were many British subjects living all over the world in the hey day of the British Empire. There are separate indexes for overseas births.
I have two books on Civil registration authored by Dr. Penelope Christensen. These are available from Heritage Productions c/o Louise St. Denis (416) 861-0165 E-Mail: info@genealogystore.com or www.genealogystore.com.
They were written before the Internet indexes but still give good hints as to how to search and charts for keeping track of your search.
One good bit of advise is to make an alphabetical surname list of all the variations of how that surname might be spelled or how you have seen it spelled.
Also if the surname you are searching is not too common, keep a list of all the entries you find in that district during the time period you search. This might save you a search later.
One other book you might want to look at if you need to do extensive searches in England is
“Family History on the Web, An Internet directory for England and Wales by Stuart A. Raymond
available from
FFHS (Publications) LTD Units 15-16
Chesham Industrial Centre,
Oram Street
Bury, Lancashire BLO 9BZ
Online Bookstore:
Or the BYU bookstore in person or on the web
How to determine which William or John is yours? There are a few tricks, Check as many census as you can to see where he was born. Parish and County should be on all census 1851 onward. Also if you find your family always showing up on certain page numbers, your John will more than likely be close in page number.
OVERSEAS REGISTRATION
These registers will cover soldiers and those living overseas. Don't forget how big the empire was up until world war II.
Page 6
We have a book here at the library called “The Phillimore Atlas and Index” It has pages for each county that list all the parishes. It is good for verifying a parish and for checking spelling. It also tells you what years the county record offices have the original parish records, which years the registers have been extracted, The years of Boyd's marriage index if applicable the registration district for 1837-1851, the years of Pallot's marriage index if applicable and where this parish is on the map in the first half of the book.
Let's look at the 1851 census for Mary Hall daughter of James and Hannah Hall.
Right here let me suggest that you find all the censuses for the families and individuals you are researching. Also find all births, marriages and deaths that you can to give you a better picture of the family.
Mary Hall was 7 in 1851 which would have her born in about 1844. Always give at least a 2 year range with the census. She was born in Buckland, Buckinghamshire. By using our book we find the registration district for Buckland is Aylesbury. Using our chart Buckinghamshire or Bucks is vol 6 and in our other chart it verifies it so as we look through the indexes for Mary Hall we know we want vol 6., This will help us know which Mary Hall to order if there is more that one in the same quarter. Which quarter will we know to look for? Search all of 1843, 1844 and 1845 and find all Mary Hall's registered in Aylesbury.
After 1851 you will need to use the alphabetical list of districts to find the correct vol number. If you only know the county of birth,use the District Codes chart.
Sending for a certificate:n GRO – General Record Office. Make sure you have Year of event, Quarter, volume and page as well as the name for the certificate you want to order.
I suggest getting the birth certificates for all the children of a family. If you cannot trace your ancestor, try tracing his siblings and you may find him. In class I handed out charts to help with the registration districts in England. Contact me for them or come to the next class.
rebeccaheadsntails@hotmail.com or 789-7200