England Civil Registration: Difference between revisions

Civil registration started in July 1837, and a manuscript index of names was created to help locate a specific certificate. Arranged quarterly and  alphabetically, these indexes may be accessed at family history centers, and a number of other repositories worldwide. In recent years volunteers began transcribing and adding the data from the manuscript indexes into a centralized index. Two sites with online civil registration indexes to births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales are located at the following websites:  

1. [http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl FreeBMD] - Search features include:  

*Date the event was registered  

*Name of the district and county  

*Date range

*Names of parents or spouse

The results show the following for each individual. This is the information you need if you want to order a copy of a certificate from the GRO.

*Year and quarter of the year when registered. Only the last month of a quarter is given: March, June, September, and December.  

*Name of the district where the event was registered. A district is a geographic area that was responsible to register the event.  

*Volume and page number

Since this is an ongoing project, you may want to know what years have already been added to the site. A set of graphs on the site shows which years have already been indexed. To link from the Home Page, click '''Information''', click '''Statistics''', and click '''Coverage Charts'''. It is also possible to report transcription errors and add "Postem" notes if you locate an entry which is incorrect or that you have more information about.  

You should bear in mind the way in which national indexes were compiled from 1837 onward. The quarterly returns sent were manually arranged in alphabetical order and the index compiled was manually written by clerks up to 1865. From 1866 to 1910 the indexes were typeset from the handwritten slips, then tpewritten until the 1960s, when computers were first used. From 1984 onwards the indexes have been 'born digital'. Some of the early handwritten indexes between 1837 and 1865 were withdrawn when they became worn, and replaced with typed copies. This extra stage of copying means that these indexes have a higher level of errors.  

There have always been checking procedures, but there was rarely enough time or funding to carry them out properly, so it is not surprising that the indexes are incomplete&nbsp;and contain&nbsp;inaccurate entries.&nbsp; If you cannot locate an entry it is sensible to go to the <u>primary</u> source of registration in the local Registration District.  

2. [http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/ UKBMD website] - Click on and enter the county desired to determine whether a county has a local bmd index project as not all counties are currently in the process of indexing the civil registration indexes to births, marriages, and deaths.  

The following counties (as of 1 November 2007) have an online indexing project for BMDs currently underway: Cambridgeshire, Cheshire,&nbsp;Durham, Hampshire, Kent, Lancashire,&nbsp;Northumberland,&nbsp;Staffordshire,&nbsp;Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Wiltshire, and Yorkshire. The Lancashire project is one of the largest and most complete. Most county-wide indexes go up to&nbsp;the year 1950 and&nbsp;all are an on-going project and are incomplete. Keep checking back for updated, new information. You can subscribe for&nbsp;online update information by email from the county&nbsp;extraction directors.&nbsp;Search features include:  

4. [http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ Ancestry.co.uk], a paid subscription site, has all the civil registration indexes available online. This site is available for free in the Family History Library and Regional Centers.