General Chat

Even if you ordered from a local register Office you will only get a copy and not the original

What is nice on Ancestry is that you can view the actual parish copy of a marriage cert for London area marriages to c1921

Those records too may be held at the London Metropolitan Archives and they may have later ones too post 1921

You will only get a copy of the cert so you will not see the original Handwriting.... For births and deaths that's not really a problem, but nice to see your ancestors signature on the marriage cert.
I have all four lots of gt grandparents marriages from ancestry London marriages.... Also both sets of grandparents late 1920s from Seax because Walthamstow was part of Essex rather than London.... Quite a big saving and original writing too

The majority of us use the government source
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/

Its easy to use once you've found the gro registration details on-line ie

Registration district
Year
Quarter
Volume #
Page #
The name ***as it appears on the index***

Each certificate costs £9.25 inc world wide P&P. Not sure of the turn-around at the moment. It used to be about 4 working days before (2nd class) despatch but it does depend on the volume of orders.

If he wanted to order from the local registry office, we'd probably advise googling for them. Although some may match the gro cost of £9.25, they usually charge more to cover their costs. Their main job is to issue current birth and death certificates, conduct marriages and civil partnerships, and collate the quarterly returns for weddings that took place elsewhere within their district.

Everything else has to fit in with that! The gro reference won't mean anything to them as they tend to have their own system.

Your friend may be interested in this site - although not complete it sometimes shows where a marriage took place. http://www.marriage-locator.co.uk/

Useful site

http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/

Thanks for the advice Chris and Rose.
Regards
Glen

Hi Rose,

Yes he uses Ancestry a lot but he wants to order the actual certificates, so needs to know where to apply to.

Regards
Glen

Glen many London local offices will not issue certificates for family history purposes.
If he does have to buy a certificate after trying other resources such as that suggested by RR then the GRO is probably the easiest way.

Chris

Glen depending on the period, Ancestry has LMA records , it is often possible to find marriages and baptisms ( some giving birth dates ) without having to buy the certs.

for instance "London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921" have proved invaluable to me when looking for my London ancestors.

Hi all,

I'm after some advice for a friend who is just starting to research his tree.
Many of his ancestors were born within London.
The problem he is having is trying to find the current registry office that covers the area where his ancestor died/was born. Is there a list of Lindon registry offices showing which areas they cover?
Or is there a list showing the old London registry areas and which current one took them over?
Alternatively is it easier just to order certs from the GRO?
Hope I've made sense !
Any help gratefully received !
Glen