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How to access Registry Office Records

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Clare

Clare Report 27 Jul 2009 11:46

Could anyone please tell me how I can search registry office marriage records for the 1930's?
Trying to do this from overseas so I cannot visit these places. Are there any online databases?

All I know is that my ancestor Ethell Ada Randall married a Tom Aitchison in B/Ham sometime after 1929 - in a registry office.

Researching:
Wilks in Worcestershire & Birmingham

Diddydoris

Diddydoris Report 27 Jul 2009 11:50

Have you tried this site

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl

InspectorGreenPen

InspectorGreenPen Report 27 Jul 2009 11:54

Free BMD goes up to about 1935, but they are not on there. They are however on Ancestry, which goes up to 2005 for marriages.

The couple were married in the March qtr of 1952. The GRO ref is Birmingham 9c 958, if you wish to order the certificate.

Clare

Clare Report 27 Jul 2009 11:59

Wow that's fantastic - thank you!

I'd looked at Free BMD but thought perhaps Registry Office Records weren't included.

But thanks so much for the help. Been looking for this one for ages!

Regards,
Clare

Researching:
Wilks in Worcestershire & Birmingham

InspectorGreenPen

InspectorGreenPen Report 27 Jul 2009 12:08

RO entries are included, its just that Free BMD doesn't go far enough forward in this particular case.

mgnv

mgnv Report 27 Jul 2009 13:09

If you do a search on Ancestry for a Randall-Aitchison marr (sim with names reversed), if you've got "Old Style" searching on, you get to see:

View Record Ethel A Randall Aitchison mm year city Warwickshire [order cert] [view image]

If you've got a sub, then the details are filled in and you can click on the view images link, and check the record, but if you've no sub, you'll see exactly as above.

It's expensive to order the cert thru them. If you hover over the "view image" icon, you'll see an URL in the bottom bar of your browser, and embedded in the middle of the URL is the image ID:
iid=ons_m19521az-1345

Now the m19521 indicates it's the marr index for 1952 quarter 1,
so now go to FreeBMDs home page and follow the "View images" link,
and you can find the images under the two names, and get the rego district, vol + page #, which will let you order the m.cert thru the GRO for 7 GBP.

Clare

Clare Report 29 Jul 2009 21:18

I did not know that. Thank you so much - that's really good to know.

I appreciate everyone's help.

Researching:
Wilks in Worcestershire & Birmingham

mgnv

mgnv Report 29 Jul 2009 23:05

Strictly speaking, what you're searching on FreeBMD etc, is the GRO index, not the entries themselves. For England, the only way to find out what's actually on an entry is to buy a certified copy of the entry. If you've got the ref info from FreeBMD, then you can buy the cert for 7 GBP - without it it costs at least 10GBP.