Genealogy Chat

I don't expect to need any myself, but sometimes when I'm playing with someone else's looking-for problems I find things in the indexes for recent years about people who are obviously living now.

In Canada where I am, there are extremely tight controls on personal info like this (which is recorded separately in each province), under privacy legislation. You very definitely can't just order up someone else's birth or marriage certificate.

In England, can you really just find a marriage, say, in the index at Ancestry, and order the certificate without establishing any connection with the individuals, even?

I experimented just now by going to the GRO site and pretending to order a marriage certificate from 2001, and wasn't asked to give any info to show that I'm entitled to order it, so it seems there are no limits.

Obviously, certificates are useful for finding things like parents' names, identifies of informants of death, etc.

I'd just like to know, so that if I say to someone "Look! Here's the person you're looking for!", e.g. getting married, I'm not giving them useless info. ;)

Thanks!

Thanks!

I was just replying to someone trying to find a half brother born in 1979, and I found what was quite likely his marriage in 2001. The index listing (again, not even this much is publicly available in Canada) gives the bride's name, but knowing her father's name might help the person looking for her half-brother -- if she could find his wife's family, that is.

So the answer seems to be that this person would not be able to order a certificate for her half-brother's marriage? (That's entirely as it should be, if you ask me!)

I'll just leave anybody in this situation to figure out this parish record business themselves. ;)

No, that's great, thanks! This one is somebody else's problem, so I'll just leave it in her lap, and keep the caveat in mind in future.

Absolutely know way you can order them in Australia. You practically have to front up in person! lol.

Ozi.

Hi All,

I haven't ordered birth certs but I have ordered marriage and death certs during the 2000 years and have received them. My gran had 8 siblings but they were all split up in 1919, the only way of tracing them was by their marriage and death certificates.

Why would someone want to spend £7 on ordering a certificate for someone that you did not think belonged to your family?

BW

Jane

I am not sure about now, but ten years ago when obtaining a passport, I phoned the Registrar Office where my birth was registered, sent a cheque and got my own birth certificate. I can't remember what info they wanted though. Also did the same some years earlier for one of my sons.

I think the 50 year restrictions on buying certs in England & Wales are more to do with people creating false ID than for privacy. For births in the past 50 years you have to give:
Surname, forenames,date and place of birth, fathers surname and forenames, mother's maiden surname and forenames, district name and number, entry number and date of registration - ie pretty well everything the certificate would tell you anyway,
For deaths within last 50 years you have to give age at death and then if it was 16 or under you will be asked for names of both parents, date of death etc and to give your own relationship to the deceased - I think this is because there were cases of people getting hold of death certificates of children then using the info to apply for a birth certificate in that name and use THAT to get a passport, bank accounts etc.
As far as I know there are no restrictions on buying marriage certificates for recent events. Presumably because there is not enough info on these for them to be used to steal ID.

Well, I am curious about the actual rules, so I'll see what anybody comes up with!

I've looked all over the GRO site and can't find anything, although I guess I might if I pursued the experiment of applying for a third party's marriage cert, e.g.

In Ontario, it's easy to find the info:

https://www.orgforms.gov.on.ca/eForms_faq/start.do?lang=en

For instance:

_____________________________________

Am I entitled to apply for the birth certificate?

* If the birth took place in the province of Ontario

* If the application is for your own birth certificate and you are at least 13 years old.

* If the application is for your child’s birth certificate and you are named as a parent on your child’s original birth registration.

* If you are the legal guardian of a child and you can provide court documents proving that you have custody of the child.

* If you are the Next-of-kin, executor or estate administrator, and the person named on the certificate is deceased. (You must provide proof of death, e.g., a death certificate or a funeral director’s statement of death, and any other documentation requested by the Office of the Registrar General). You will only be able to obtain a long form (certified copy) of a birth certificate. Short form birth certificates will not be issued for a deceased person.

The Office of the Registrar General maintains birth registrations for 95 years. For records older than this, please contact the Archives of Ontario.
_____________________________________

Who is entitled to apply for a marriage certificate?
There are restrictions on who may apply for a marriage certificate. The parties to the marriage, children of the marriage, parents of the parties to the marriage and legally authorized representatives acting on behalf of these individuals are entitled to apply. Authorized representatives are required to provide proof of authorization.

Who is entitled to apply for a certified copy of marriage registration if one or both of the parties to the marriage is deceased?

The surviving party and Next of Kin - the parents of either party, children of the marriage and siblings of either party. If all the Next of Kin are deceased, Extended Next of Kin may apply. Extended Next of Kin relationships include aunt, uncle, first cousin, grandchild, grandfather, grandmother, nephew and niece.

Next of Kin Certification

The Office of the Registrar General requires you to certify online that you are the Next of Kin or, that, the Next of Kin is deceased and you are the Extended Next of Kin.
____________________________________

Who is entitled to apply for a death certificate?
There are no restrictions on who may apply for a death certificate.
____________________________________

Now, that isn't entirely clear; the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act has more to say:

"Personal information does not include information about an individual who has been dead for more than thirty years."

so I guess if you could show that the person has been dead that long, you could get his/her birth/marriage cert ... I dunno, not finding specific info. Here we are, a reference to the Vital Statistics Act, so I'll check that. ... Aargh, I just can't find a danged rule anywhere.

What Ancestry.ca says about Cdn birth records implies that the rule for births is 96 years, like the federal rule (which is why we have the 1911 census available now):

"Each year an additional year of vital records are transferred from the Registrar General to the Archives of Ontario where the records are then closed for a year while being microfilmed. The Archives of Ontario currently has births on microfilm from July 1869-1910. They received the birth records for 1911 in 2007 and are in the process of microfilming them. These records should be available for research sometime in 2008."

Ancestry has marriages to 1924 and deaths to 1934 (official vital statistics sites like for British Columbia have similar cutoffs) so I assume that the release date for marriages is about 80 years after, and for deaths 70 years.

Just can't find anything comparable, that a rule could even be inferred from, for England!

Not able to quote the law on this, but I think that marriage, particularly, is a matter of public record, therefore it has to be seen to be done publicly. I think this probably has to do with stopping bigamy. If a ceremony has to be public, then the record of that ceremony also has to be public. Anyone can go to the GRO and look up and then order birth and death certs. It is slightly cheaper if you can quote the volume and page no. and date, but a bit more if they have to do a search for you. If you are living abroad you will have to do it on line of course, but many people here will look things up for you, try a request on the Records board where people who are actually going to the GRO will help.

I sent for my birth mother's marriage cert. (to find out her name after her second marriage, and the address) I did not have to say, or prove who I was at all. I just sent a letter and cheque to the registry office of the area I had been told she had moved to. The cert. came back in less than a week. This was about 25 years ago though, so it may have changed.
Eileen

Thanks Eileen -- no problem here with finding/ordering certificates; I've enriched the GRO considerably from my Visa account in the last couple of years. ;)

No, it's just that "Anyone can go to the GRO and look up and then order birth and death certs" bit that I find weird, because I am used to much more stringent privacy rules. It isn't just the certificates here, it's the info itself -- there is no access to the registers for the period of a potential lifespan, basically. It just gobsmacks me that I can go to Ancestry, say, and look up births and marriages in England that happened in the last decade.

Odd that English censuses are only released after 100 years, but BMD info, which is personal info after all, is apparently accessible to anyone!

You think you've got censuses bad -- in the 2006 Canadian census, they started giving the option of NOT allowing personal info to be released even after the 96 years.

In fact, it's a negative option -- if you want to ALLOW your info to be released, you have to check the box. Just imagine how many people are not going to do that.

There was a genealogist uproar over this, to no avail. I just figure in 96 years everybody who didn't check the box will be dead, and they can make a new law ...

Otherwise, genealogical research in Canada will be a dead duck. Everybody living now had just better bury time capsules with all their info in!

I have obtained BD and M certs for less than 30 years ago with no problem.

Margaret.