General Chat

I have just tried doing a search for myself and my mother, (I have both of our birth certificates) but according to Genes reunited there are no records of either of our births. These are the ones I am sure about and have certificates to prove it! If I can't find people I have birth certificates for, what chance do I have of tracing my other ancestors?? It is little wonder I am having great problems tracing my Great Grandmother!
Has anyone else tried finding their OWN details?

Have you tried looking on this FREE site.?
Many people use it as their main guide to further research

http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl

Once you find a birth, (after 1911 maiden names of the mother is shown) it is often possible to search for a marriage.
By clicking on the pair of glasses seen on search results, you can link to the actual GRO scan of the register in order to verify details if you want to send for certificates.

Gwyn

Are you putting full names in?

On freebmd you would not get a result if you add middle names in full after 1912...just the initial is enough....not sure if that's the same on genes??

I take it the births are in England or Wales?

Edit - Just checked my birth by putting full name in...and it worked, so its not that then

Most people are used to using Google or similar web search engines which attempts to find anything that remotely matches some of the criteria you enter.

Genealogical search engines don't work like this and as a general rule, will only return a result if all the criteria you enter matches exactly. If just one of the criteria you search on is slightly wrong then you get no result.

It is a case of less is best. Only enter data you are absolutely certain of and where possible use wildcards in your searches as these may help overcome the exact match rule. Second given names are often omitted or only recorded as an initial on the records (mine is) so it is best to leave then out when searching.

Births are not necessarily registered in the quarter in which the event occurred, so use a range of dates either side.

Incidentally, FreeBMD automatically adds a * wildcard to Given Names (But not Surnames) so entering Pam searches as though you have entered Pam* and will find Pamela,

However if you want to search for surname variations you need to put in your own wildcards. E.g. Bag*ot* will get you Bagot, Baggot, Bagott, Baggott and so on.

Just done a search and found a song dedicated to you, Valerie:

"I love to go a-wandering,
Along the mountain track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.

Chorus:
Valerie,Valera,
Valerie,
Valera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Valerie,Valera.
My knapsack on my back."

:-D

FreeBMD claims to be substantially complete up to 1949 for births although there are in fact quite a lot of holes and errors. Post 1949 they have very little and nothing at all after 1983.

FreeBMD has a fairly good error correcting system but nothing for missing records. It works on the basis of the GRO Index which is an index NOT the actual BMD record. The GRO index itself is redolent with errors and omissions for one reason and another.

Do not expect census details and BMD records to nicely dovetail together.
Sometimes they do, more often than not they don't. When looking at census records do NOT ignore people resident at the address with a different family name.

Ancestry and some other subscription sites have a more complete England & Wales BMD index going up to 2006. The GRO have withdrawn access to the indexes for family history sites for records after 2005/6. Public access to these registers is now available only by visiting one of the half dozen centres in person - for most of SE UK that means Kew, London.

Valerie, my birth reg is in the following year to my birth ie December birth registered in the following January. Therefore if I attempted to put in the specific year without any leeway it would not show up.

Use Freebmd as advised, and be less specific as to place and date. Also be aware that sometimes GR search seems to go awol, clear your search and start again. if you need help with looking for your great grandmother post on FA board and someone will try and find details ( might just be she was reg under a first name she never used).

Good luck.

I looked for many years for my great Grandfather, I knew where he was born and his DOB, from the Catholic Baptism records. Found all his siblings births and parents marriage. And despite all this I could never find his birth record.

So quite recently I tried a different tack. Put in just his surname and area and year.
Up popped about 20 with the Surname Simpson, now I discounted the girls and those others names I had already looked at and the 2 quarters which I knew he would not be be. And all I was left with was 1 'male' Simpson. I checked the following year for deaths of either a 'male' Simpson and found none. So I ordered this certificate and lo and behold there was my G/Grandfathers birth certificate. Now we knew he was disabled (walked with a pronounced limp) so all I can assume is that he was very ill when born and was baptised very quickly, but that his parents never bothered to amend his name on his original registration.

So as you can see, you do have to sometimes think 'outside' the box.

Had a pm from Valerie

I believe I have found her birth reg easy enough on GR....as I do not subscribe to the records I have sent the free search

Not really sure what the problem is

All I put in was Valerie (Surname) plus year of birth.... not many to choose from

Oi!! Inspector Green, leave my Baggotts out of it!! :-P