Return to Simon's Research Site
A New Look at Births Marriages, Deaths and the Census
Or A New Look at Biths, Marriages, Deaths and the Census.
A talk given by Simon Martin to the Skelmersdale and Up Holland Family History Society May 2002
Once we started researching our family
histories we probably started off interviewing old relatives and
collecting copies of family papers and photographs.
We have written on the backs of the photos
in soft pencil and produced a draft family tree.
Our next step was probably to look for Births Deaths and Marriages via the indexes.
Civil Registration
The official records of births, marriages and deaths – gathered under the civil registration system – are of key importance to family history research. They should enable you to trace your ancestors and other relatives back to before 1837 and even the late 1700s (using death and marriage records.
A birth certificate allows you to prove a person’s parentage and when and where that person was born.
A marriage certificate proves that a legally valid marriage actually took place and that any children are legitimate.
A death certificate allows you to bury or cremate a body [Once Green slips came in the late 1800s] it also allows you to wind up the deceased affairs. It states the cause of death and the persons presumed age.
In England and Wales, civil registration began on the 1 July 1837.
In Scotland on 1 January 1855.
In Ireland non-Catholic Marriages were registered from 1 April 1845 but Bithds, Deaths and Catholic Marriages were not registered till as late as 1 Jan 1864.
Channel Islands from 1840s
Isle of Man from 1858
There are also Military and Oversees indexes, together with divorce and adoption indexes together with the main sequences of indexes.
In some parts of England [ESS, MDX, SAL, SRY, SSX and I suspect Liverpool and Manchester it has been estimated that up to 15% of births were not registered between 1837 and 1875, when the law changed to make the parents and not the registrar responsible under penalty for registration. Some parents avoided paying a late registration penalty gee by giving a later, incorrect date of firth for the child.
From 1875 Cause of Death had to be certified by a doctor.
From 1875 a father of an illegitimate child could not be named on the birth certificate ubless he was present when the child was registered.
From 1899 Nonconformist and Catholic Marriages could be performed without a registrar being present. The chapels keeping their own register from 1899. Before 1899 the RC and Nonconformists marriage registers were taken back with the registrar to the registry office.
Roman Catholics tended to keep their own Latin registers of marriages before 1899 and these can have extra details not shown in the “official” registers of marriages.
Finding certificates – Old and New ways.
The indexes are split, until recently into 4 quarters of a year
March Quarter – Events Registered Jan, Feb, Mar
June Quarter – Events Registered Apr, May and June
September Quarter – Events Registered Jul, Aug and September
December Quarter – Events Registered Oct, Nov and Dec
Be aware especially with births that the event can be registered the quarter after it took place.
Eg I was born 25 Dec 1965 but my Birth is not registered till the March Quarter of 1966.
The indexes only give name, registration district and a reference until 1866 when age is recorded in the deaths indexes and 1912 when mother’s maidenames are recorded in the Birth indexes and Spouses surnames are recorded in the marriage index.
Note only Registratuion district and not the sub-district is recorded. So looking for Ince is no good you have to look for Wigan. Some districts in London are very small in area but have large populations eg St George Hanover Square. Many district names and the area they covered also changed over time just to confuse matters.
See Brett Langstons “A Handbook to the Civil Registration Districts of England and Wales” 2001
Some of the Registration Districts are very confusing [ed Cheadle is the Cheadle in Staffordshire, not Cheshire] so it is best to work out what county they are in [Some straggled more than one county]. Brett Langstons book and one by Ray Wiggins help work out the counties using the district names and/ or the volume numbers.
Gaining access to Birth Marriage and Death records
The Family Records Centre in Islington/ Farringdon, London opened in 1997. It now contains the paper indexes to Births Marriages and Deaths previously housed in Somerset House [where there was a fee to view them] them St. Catherines House, Aldwich, London. [in 1984, Indexes to death certificates were housed at Alexandra House, Kingsway! The indexes are still often referred to as St Catherine’s House Index. A phrase now being superseded by General Register Office [GRO] Indexes.
Back in the 1980s the only way of searching the indexes was an expensive trip to London or an expensive postal search with GRO Southport at Smedley Hydro.
New methods of searching developed. Firstly poorly microfilmed [Just after the 2nd World War] copies of the indexes started to appear in local Libraries and Record Offices. These indexes are often very hard to read, have pages missed in the filming process and many entries illegible even to young eyes. Still the only comprehensive way of searching the indexes is at London or on these microfilmed copies.
Many member of the Guild of One-name –studies including me have extracted all the births deaths and marriages from the indexes for their names of interests.
Here is the Copestake and Mounteney one!
Often these were deposited at the Society of Genealogists on completion.
As with lots of things in the genealogy world things have been added to the internet.
One such massive project is FreeBMD at http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/
Welcome to FreeBMD. FreeBMD stands for Free Births, Marriages, and Deaths. The FreeBMD Project's objective is to provide free Internet access to the Civil Registration index information for England and Wales. The Civil Registration system for recording births, marriages, and deaths in England and Wales has been in place since 1837 and is one of the most significant single resources for genealogical research back to Victorian times. The FreeBMD project only contains index information for the period 1837-1901.
The FreeBMD Database was last updated on
Wed 10 Apr 2002 and currently contains 31,419,210 total records (29,389,196
unique records).
It is not Comprehensive but coverage is increasing. Coverage is very good for late 1800s marriages.
The other way of accessing the Births marriages and deaths was and still is via local registrars. You can pay to access their indexes a few of which eg Birmingham and Liverpool Marriages [Late 1800s to 1930] are available in the registry offices.
An increasing number of these indexes are going on online:
Eg Cheshire - http://www.cheshirebmd.org.uk/
CAMBRIDGESHIRE BMD Index http://www.camcnty.gov.uk/sub/register/cambsindex.htm
Newcastle - http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/registrars.nsf/a/homepage
An SAE should always be enclosed when contacting a registrar but not the GRO
Office for National Statistics [inc. GRO] - http://www.statistics.gov.uk/
GRO - Marriages - Comedy of Errors - Continued http://globalgazette.net/gazfd/gazfd38.htm
BMD Certificate Exchange - http://www.ukbdm.org.uk/
Deaths - Causes of - http://www.paul_smith.doctors.org.uk/ArchaicMedicalTerms.htm
Registrar’s addresses are on GENUKI
Scottish records are on Scotlink
A number of Irish registrations are on the British Vital Records CD-Roms 2nd ed.
The Future
Under the current registration review it looks like all historic registers will be deposited in Registry Offices.
FreeBMD goes from strength to strength and may replace the indexes altogether.
Other registry offices are likely to put their indexes online
The Census a new look
Censuses since 1801 have taken place every 10 years 1801-1911.
These are to measure the population size and obtain other statistical information useful to government both locally and nationally.
The 1801-1831 Census were mainly statistical but a few survive including the 1801 for Liverpool and the 1811 For par of Wigan [Which I am currently indexing at the really memorable website of: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~copestake/lanwigan1811cen20022.html
We are very fortunate that any of the census survived at all.
Mainly we concentrate on the 1841-1901 Census as these help trace ancestry back to place of birth and from 1851 onwards give relationships.
The 1841 census although useful only gives an indication whether the person was born in the same County as they are now living Y, Somewhere else in England or Wales, N, or Whether born in Ireland I, Scotland S of other “Foireign parts” F
Ages are rounded down to the nearest 5 years for those over 15, no relationships are given. I have found that not all the surnames are given either. There is also a lack of precise addresses, and very few occupations.
Census from 1851 onwards are generally more useful. What we see are the enumerators books written up from the schedules. The schedules were destroyed as having nothing that was not written into the books.
Be aware particularly of ages as they can be inaccurate. Where Possible collect as many census entries a possible for a family.
In the 1950s and 1960s you used to consult the actual enumerators books. These have now been microfilmed the original books now being inaccessible. Be aware that some of the microfilming is old and poor quality esp the 1841 and 1851 returns. The 1841 returns being written in pencil. Some of these earlier returns are being refilmed which is getting much better results.
Census returns on microfilm are available in London as well as local repositories. Lancashire Record Office now has a complete set including 1901 for Lancashire apart from 1881 in Preston.
Generally you need to know the address someone was living to find them on the census.
Recent Developments
Census have been indexed for some time by various people, as transcriptions, indexes or surname indexes.
Most of the 1851 census was indexed for surnames at least by local family history societies including us. A number of these indexes are being released as CD-Roms covering a whole county or City. Eg our own societies CD-Rom of Liverpool inner and outer districts and Staffordshire has been released as a surname index by the BMSGH.
The Family History Society of Cheshire have gone one stage further and have issued images of the actual census along with the index.
The 1881 Census was transcribed, indexed and published on CD-Rom and as fiche by LDS and FFHS.
This is reasonably accurate as the data was double-checked.
As a Pilot the LDS also issued an indexed transcript of the 1851 Census of Devon, Norfolk and Warwickshire.
S&N have released the 1891 Census for London, Lancashire and Yorkshire and are promising other census years in the future.
S&Ns Lancashire is issued in 3 DVDs or 30+ CD Roms at an affordable price. These are scans of the returns together with the PRO Street Indexes but no other finding aids.
There is a controversial release of the 1901 Census via the internet which managed to prove how popular family history is as a hobby.
The PRO are hoping to release other census in the same way.
The transcription of the 1901 even when it is released will be poor as about 75% of the indexing was done on the Indian Subcontinent where English is not the first language and there is no local knowledge of places in Britain.
The 1901 for the entire country is of course available at Kew [Not the FRC] and is very searchable as long as you know where the people concerned were living.
At the moment our society is indexing/ transcribing the 1841 Census of Liverpool and is issuing each piece as a CD-Rom. These will eventually be combined and issued as one Cd-Rom once the project is completed.
Like BMD there is a FreeCens project but I can’t find it presently on the internet.
Census indexes currently available are listed by MARRIAGE and CENSUS INDEXES for Family Historians by Jeremy Gibson and Elizabeth Hampson FFHS 2000
Some counties are better indexed by others, Lancashire is poor whereas Nottinghamshire 1841-1891 have been surname indexed for the entire county.
Return to Simon's Research Site
(c) Simon Martin and Contributors 2002
Last updated 8 Jun 2002