General Chat

FreeBMD is full of holes, missing records, transcription mistakes of all kinds. It is run by some really wacky people who believe they are perfect. The version on Ancestry is better and certainly more complete.

When looking for children the usual method is to input the married surname of the women and filter by maiden name. It helps a lot if you have some idea of the where and when. The maiden name is frequently misspelt so allow for that.

It may be worth noting that when a women married for a second time there are often two marriage entries, one with her maiden name and another with her previously married name. This can be helpful.

It is often thought that where a child has the same surname as his mother's maiden name it indicates birth out of wedlock. Yes, sometimes. However with the consent of the father registration of a birth with correct mother and father has always been possible back to the year dot even if they were not married and even if one of them was married to somebody else. Further since about 1970 it has been possible to change a birth cert. retrospectively. Then there are the large numbers of people who marry somebody with the same surname not being related in any way.

Online UK BMD has continued since 2006 - the records have been computerised since the 1970s. However since 2006 release of the records to commercial FH firms has ceased.

also after 1912? a search of her maiden name will be listed, a clue to out of wedlock births, sometimes............

You could start by finding if she is married as probably any children will then bear her married surname.

Depending on when she was born you could search the census' if you know her married name.

A couple of ways, depending on the time!!
If it's after 1837, and before 1983, you can use Free BMD http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl
But this hasn't got all the records.

Hi

I have found the lady i am searching for but how do i find if she has any children

Thanks

Peter