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help needed

ProfilePosted byOptionsPost Date

sharmaine

sharmaine Report 29 Aug 2014 21:54

Can anyone tell me where records are kept for births a.nd deaths register in sudbury suffolk many thanks

KathleenBell

KathleenBell Report 29 Aug 2014 22:12

I just googled and came up with this:-

The Register Office The Town Hall Old Market Place Sudbury CO10 1TL.

They will also be at the GRO in Southport.

Kath. x

mgnv

mgnv Report 30 Aug 2014 05:15

As you probably know, births & deaths were rego'ed at the subdistrict office to save folk from all over Sudbury Rego District having to trek to the main office in Sudbury. Wheb a rego was full, it was lodged at the main office.
Because of redistricting in 1938, Sudbury lost one subdistrict (the Essex part - Bulmer) to Halstead, and gained part of Cosford RD (Hadleigh). With the redistricting some rego's were transferred to the new RD's head office.

Marrs were similar, but the church played the role of a subdistrict.
However, pre-1898, only C of E, jews and quakers (and the registrar) were authorized to keep offivial marr rego's.
So a non-conformist marr would need the registrar t attend, with his official rego for the couple to sign, mixed in with all the rego office marrs he'd conducted.
RCs weren't trusted to keep official marr regos until (I think) the 1980s.
When a church's rego was full, it was lodged in some archive, usually the County Records Office.
The local RD kept a copy of all these rego's, along with their registrar's rego's.
(NB Just because a church wasn't authorized to keep an official rego, there's no reason why they shouldn't keep an unofficial rego - again, when full, these would be lodged in some archive,]

The local RD sent a copy of all the BMDs that happened in its last quarter (copied subdistrict/church by subdistrict/church) to the GRO.
So you can buy an official BMD cert from either the local office that now holds the relevant rego, or from the GRO, (or from the church, if the marr is in its current rego).

Some local offices have their own indexes at least partly online - see:
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/local_bmd

These are always worth checking - here's a couple of examples from my tree:
Lancashire Birth indexes for the years: 1851
Surname Forename(s) Sub-District Registers At Mother's Maiden Name Reference
BALDWIN Thomas Pemberton Wigan & Leigh WINSTANLEY PEM/9/456

1887 BAGNALL Martha
1887 THIRLAWAY George
Marriage venue - All Saints [Newcastle]
Register No./Entry No.
EAS21/115

However, there're no indexes for Suffolk or Essex.


Although the local office has the original birth rego, most don't give you digital images of that rego, but a freshly copied b.cert.
Most folk find it more convenient to use the GRO and get their digitization of their copied rego, ordering via:
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

-----------------------

By now, you'll have noticed I've not answered your question, so here's how to get the answer:

Do a search at http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl Suppose I get a hit like:
Births Sep 1839 (>99%)
Smith John Sudbury 12 435

Click on the "Sudbury" link, then the more info "here" link - it takes you to:
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/districts/sudbury.html
[The more general page is:
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/districts/index.html]

The header info is:

SUDBURY REGISTRATION DISTRICT
Registration County : Suffolk.
Created : 1.7.1837.
Abolished : 2.11.2010 (to become part of Suffolk registration district).
Sub-districts : Bulmer, Bures, Hadleigh, Harest [typo for Hartest], Melford, Sudbury
GRO volumes : XII (1837–51), 4a (1852–1946), 4B (1946–74), 10 (1974–92).
Registers currently held at : Suffolk (Sudbury) and Essex (Braintree).

then it has a list of the parishes and villages in the RD at some point.

Clicking on the "Registers currently held at" links gets you the possible locations.
It seems reasonable to guess Essex holds the Essex part of Sudbury RD & Suffolk holds the rest.

Jacqueline

Jacqueline Report 30 Aug 2014 14:57

In what era?