Genealogy Chat

I have recently gathered some information for my family tree and was wondering how to record the births in my family tree program when all I have is the quarter they occurred. I realise that to find the exact date you have to purchase the birth certificate but living in Australia (and info is from Uk) it is expensive. Can some kind person give me some advice please. Is there any other way of obtaining accurate details other than the certificate? Many thanks for your time.

If they have died since 1969 then their birth date, as far as the informant knew, will be on the GRO ref.
Christening records too may show the birth date ,depends how the vicar liked to keep his records though.

I generally put the first month of the quarter as you are allowed 6 weeks to register a birth, therefore if it shows Apr/May/Jun, they could heve been born in late february and not registered until beginning of April. I would put for example April + 1940. The + meaning A/M/J. As long as you understand it and keep it the same throughout it shouldn't matter.

If the birth was registered in the July - September quarter of 1864, then I record the birth date as Abt. Sep 1864

The abbreviation Abt. is recognised by most family tree programs and the detail will also transfer correctly via gedcom file. Other forms of abbreviation may not transfer correctly.

I then record the Index details in the Notes as follows:-

Births Sep 1864
Ashby de la Z 7a 89
POYNTON Richard Harry

This is always exactly per the index, including misspellings, which can be quite common, especially with certain names.

Mzny thanks once again to everyone for your kind help. Greatly appreciated.

Shirley's given the 2 most common sources of exact dates.
If a kid's father's WW1 service record survived, then an exact dob for the kid might be recorded there, too.