Genealogy Chat

When a copy certificate is issued, is the information photocopied on to it from the original ? All the writing on my grandparents certificate looks to be written in the same hand, details, signatures, even witness signatures. This seems a bit odd. Also, another silly question, what exacty did a shipwright do ? Thanks Jeanette

HI Jeanette, According to my dictonary of occupations, a ship wright was a skilled ship builder Natalie

A Shipwright will have been involved with the building of ships. I found one sentence.The shipwright stands on a scaffold at the stern and drives in the wedges with his wooden trunnel. The holes are first bored with the auger and then the wedges drove in. These are afterwards cut off with a saw. Taken from The book of trades 1811 part 1 published by Wiltshire Family HS. Ann Glos

Usually all certificates from a register office are copies of the original ,hand written by a third party. Hence the writing being all done by one hand including the signatures. It can be better if you are able to purchase a photocopy of the original church register page from the local record office. Two advantages. It generally works out cheaper than the register office and you will end up with the copules signatures. Presuming they could write.

The original will have been transcribed at least once by the time the GRO get it. Someone at GRO would then transcribe and sort the names into alphabetical order. A printer/compositor would then work from the written list to make a printed list. These printed lists may then be transcribed again to put on FreeBMD. Not hard to see why problems can arise, is it?

All original signed certificates are held locally but that does not mean you will get an original copy locally, it might be a modern transcription. The ones from the GRO may be a photocopy of the original or of the original transcription done by the clergy or local registrar. In early days they were all transcribed by hand. The GRO do not hold any originals. What I am trying to say is that you can't guarantee getting a copy of the original from either source because…. 1 The GRO don’t have all copies of all originals 2 The District Registrars have the originals but don’t all provide copies of them Fun isn’t it ? Bob

Thanks everyone for your help. My reason for asking was trying to clear up whether my familys name was Morgan or Morgans, the signatures on the certificate say morgans. I have no received another certificate that I think has original handwriting on it and there is a loop and the end of the n in morgan - hence now i think who ever transcribed the document mistook the loop for an s. However the new certificate has thrown up another question - on the marriage cert the name given for my grandmother is Elizabeth Maud Rudd but on my dad's birth certificate its Elizabeth Mary Rudd. I'm having alot of trouble finding a record of her birth she was married in July 1918 at Pembroke and her stated age is 19 - I can't find a match and I've ordered a couple of wrong certificates - can anyone help ?