Birth, marriage and death certificates
 If you have just started researching your family tree,
Simon Fowler has some sound advice in this and other articles in
our ancestors series.
Simon is an
experienced writer and lecturer regularly giving lectures at the
Society of Genealogists. His latest book
Military History on the Internet has just been published by
Pen & Sword
Ancestors is the Family History
Magazine from the National Archives click
for the special offer they are making to laterlife visitors
Birth, marriage and death
certificates
Certificates are probably the most important records you will
use in your research. They are expensive – currently ?7 each –
but if used the right way, they can really help track your
ancestors and save a lot of money in the long term.
Separate certificates are issued for
births, marriages and deaths. They began to be issued on 1 July
1837. And although it was not compulsory to register events
until 1874, it is clear that most people did from the late
1830s.
Certificates will tell you the full
name of the individuals and the date and place where the event
took place.
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Birth certificates also include full names of the parents, the
occupation of the father, and the mother’s maiden name. If the
father is not given it means that the child was illegitimate:
something regarded deeply shameful a century ago. You will have
to look for twins or triplets if an exact time was given in the
birth column.
Marriage certificates
contain the names and occupations of the fathers of the
bride and groom and where they were living before
marriage. If the couple were over 21 the entry may read
‘of full age’, although it is unusual to find this after
the 1870s. In order to get married at a particular
church, couples had to be resident in the parish for at
least three weeks. To overcome this they often gave the
same address: this did not necessarily mean that they
were cohabiting.
Death certificates are the
least informative, but they do give cause of death. If
you are lucky you may find your ancestor at their
workplace or in an accident, or very occasionally even a
murder. Where this happens there is normally a coroner’s
inquest and full coverage in the local papers. Otherwise
you may need to work out the medical shorthand to
discover how your ancestor died. There are several
online medical dictionaries which may provide an
explanation of the terms used, one of which can be found
at http://www.genealogy-quest.com/.
The certificates aren’t
perfect by any means. Individuals and registrars made
mistakes in entering the names of individuals. For
example, when my brother registered our mother’s death
recently he got her middle name slightly wrong. This may
well confuse a family historian in 200 years time trying
to trace the Fowler family tree.
Individuals are also known
to have lied, particularly on marriage certificates.
Brides and grooms told the registrar that they were over
21 when they were not in order to avoid parental
displeasure. More seriously, men and women claimed they
were single when in fact they were married. This is
understandable because it was almost impossible to
divorce cheaply before the 1920s. In most cases people
turned a blind eye, but occasionally there was a court
case.
You can our more about
certificates and their value for family historians at
http://home.clara.net/dixons/
Certificates/indexbd.htm
.
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Can’t find an entry in the indexes?
Here are some tips: • The names may be spelt wrong
– try all the variations you can think of. Either
the person registering the event got the details
wrong or the registrar mistranscribed the
information. Recent research has shown that the
registers (see last month’s article) are littered
with mistakes and omissions. The General Register
Office is reindexing both the registers and the
indexes, but it may be a few years before this
project has been completed.
• It is a good idea to search ten years either side
of the date you think the event took place, just in
case your information was wrong.
• Information can be missing from the indexes
provided by the commercial online services. The most
complete data (and easiest to use) is provided by
FreeBMD at
www.freebmd.org.uk .
• The event might have taken place outside England
and Wales. Scottish records are online at
www.scotlands
people.gov.uk , and events
registered at British consuls overseas are at
www.findmypast.com . Irish records are not yet
online, but you can find more information at
www.groireland.ie
.
• For some reason the event has not been registered.
If you know where they lived you could try the local
register office or parish registers to see whether
they have the missing information.
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SPECIAL
OFFER FOR LATERLIFE VISITORS
Are you interested in tracing
your family history?
Ancestors, the family history magazine from The National
Archives, is the essential read for all family, local and
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family history experts, it gives practical advice for beginners
and more experienced researchers, reveals the best family
history websites and online resources and news on what is
happening at The National Archives.
Articles in the series:
Get going with your
family history
Census Returns
Birth, marriage
and death records
Birth, marriage
and death certificates
Going back
before 1837
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