Genealogy Chat

Most people on this site use the national records (GRO 1837 online) If a record can't be found they can sometime be found locally ( some records mainly births don't exist at all) If they they do, and the local office won't help then what are you supposed to do? I think there is a legal right to access these records. I may try the SOG first to see if they have raised the problem. If you need any general or specific help the folk on this board will assist. Bob

Hi Bob. I contacted the Hammersmith registry office where most of my ancestors birth death and marriages were registed but was told I was not able to obtain information or certificates from them. I have managed to get to London once and only obtain a small ammount of info as i am new to this research. If you can give me any tips I would be gratefull

Just a few points new researchers Since the start of civil registration in 1837, when a birth, marriage or death occurred, the event has had to be recorded at the local register office. Every three months, these local records have then been re-transcribed, sent to the GRO where they were copied and re-indexed once again. At each point where data are copied and re-indexed, there was scope for errors and omissions. There were many. The original registers are held by the District Registrars. The net effect is that records exist at local level which are not on GRO. The advantage of GRO is that the area in which the event took place isn’t needed and the system is available online. However there are many more names on GRO to get lost in.. Points FreeBmd are indexing the national GRO indexes. so cover the whole country. The local county BMD’s (where available) are using the local records and thus should “plug” the holes in 1837. Because their databases are much smaller they are much quicker. They also have different periods indexed. YorksBMD for example has all the Leeds district marriages from 1837-1950 online. They also print out an application form to the correct office. There seems to be no standard as to what you get (i.e. copy or transcription ) if ordering from a local office ring them up and ask them what they supply, you may not want to pay £7 for an inaccurate transcription. So you might want to try GRO but be aware that these may be transcriptions . Copies of (or copies of copies of) the originals (esp. on marriage certs) can usually be recognised by the different handwriting. Bob

Just a few points new researchers see below