General Chat

Civil registration will take you back to late 1837.

FreeBMD is, well, free...

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/

If you want to go earlier than that, you'll need acces to parish records - they are also useful after 1837 as well, if you can access them online.

You can get copies of marriage certs (from 1837 onwards) at the GRO site for £9.25 per cert. It's also worth registering on the GRO site anyway, it costs nothing and is very useful for pre-1911 deaths and births. This is because the freeBMD index only gives mother's maiden name for births after c1911, and spouse's surname from about the same period. The GRO Index gives mother's maiden name when this is different from the child's surname - you can see that wehave used it in some of the posts to cross reference with the census information to find out more about your relatives, and take us further back, a generation at a time.

" Which records are available to search in the new GRO index?

Historic birth and death records will be made available to search. These are birth records from 1837 to 1916 and death records from 1837 to 1957."

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

However some marriage and baptism registers can be found online, on subscription sites such as Findmypast or Ancestry, or may be available on free sites, such as freereg, or family search s mentioned earlier.

https://www.freereg.org.uk/

https://familysearch.org/

Find My Past and Ancestry have censuses for England and Wales through to 1911, and Scotland to 1901. Scotland's people site has the 1911 Scottish census and Scottish records.

Other people can probably give you a steer on the many sites I've overlooked! Apologies for not being very good at explaining things.

Hi Julie :-)

I have mainly used Genes Reunited for all my family history, and used occasional offers for Find My Past and Ancestry to fill in missing gaps.

As to the best, probably FMP has the most extensive records, but my experience with GR has been a good one once you learn how to use the site.
I have to say though, that since the FMP people bought the company (GR) they do not look after it as they should, and the site is suffering because of that, and it's not what it once was.


What GR has that the other sites do not have are the various "Boards". Here you will find lovely people like Kucinta and the others, who use their own subs for this and various other sites to access records for others, because they enjoy helping people.


What I have found is, what one site has, another doesn't and so forth.
eg.. FMP helped me find loads of Parish Records for my Kent ancestors on my mother's side, while GR provided me with my father's Pembrokeshire records.


HOW TO USE THIS SITE TO FIND RECORDS:
You asked how to use this site and save records you find.....
I'll use my 3x Great Grandfather as an example.

I click on Search at the top right corner of the page.
Then I chose the "Search All Records" link.
I put in his name - and date of birth 1789 - using give/take 2 years (give/take goes up to 10 years. The 5 years option is best for Census Records) -Hertfordshire - and then click "Search Now".
There are Six Boxes, one of which have the found results in- Three Census' Records.

I click on "View" in that particular box and the references for the 3 Census Records are shown.
Be careful though, as sometimes there may be more than one person with the name you are looking for.

If you have a GR sub you can click on the Original Images to examine them.



VIEWING YOUR FOUND RECORDS:
If you have a PLATINUM sub you can view UNLIMITED records as shown above, unlimited amounts of times.

PARISH Records are extra. If you have bought these you can also have unlimited views of them. They will appear in The Birth Deaths and Marriages Box normally.


If you have a STANDARD sub you will need to use CREDITS, and in this instance, you will be charged credits each time you view the record, even if it's saved in your Keepsafe.

Or you can use Pay As You Go, but that works out quite expensive, as a systematical search of all the records found is the best way to be sure you have found the person you are looking for.



TO SAVE THE RECORD....
When you click on the original record, click on "Download" and it will save to your own computer, so you can view it whenever you want for free.

You can also save it to your GR Keepsafe, but once your subscription / credits run out, you will not be able to see the record, so always best to save it immediately to your computer.


It's trial and error mostly, and the more you use the site, the more experienced you will get at it, and therefore the better at finding results you will be.
Take lots of notes. The more information you can amass on the person you are researching the better to find more records.

From time to time there are offers for Find My Past for as little as £1 for a month. Usually, a kind poster lets us know and many of us take advantage of that! :-D :-D :-D


Wishing you all the best for your Genealogy Experience Julie.
Call me Jem, btw :-) :-)

There's Free Access to UK and Irish Records on Ancestry this weekend (Sat Feb 18 - Monday 20) but you will probably need to register.
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/free-access

Hi Jem ,
Thank you for all your help, I'm trying to get John Hill and Ellen Ramshaw's Marriage certificate and Parish records for John Hill and Elizabeth Sharps. I have genes reunited Platinum with Parish records added I also joined the freeorg and the Family one but i cant get any info up they say they don't have anything on them.when i go on gov org to try and find them i cant get certificates as i don't know what year they got married.Can you please tell me what i'm doing wrong.Will it be worth me subscribing to Ancestry again?Do you think? I think i'm going mad will help when my lap top is fixed as i can't see much on my phone and school assess is limited.Any point in the right direction will be gratefully Received.
Thank you again x :-S

Surname Given Name District Volume Page
Marriages Dec 1874
Ramshaw Ellen Newcastle T. 10b 152

Is this the correct area Julie?

Hi Ann, Most of my family granda family born in Newcastle sometimes it comes up as Howden Northumberland or Willington quays or on my granda sisters Passport it says Wallsend I think its all round the same area. what site did you find this on pleases and can you tell me what the no and letters mean please.
thank you
Julie.

Hi Julie,

By entering ELLEN RAMSHAW into the Search Marriages in Genes Reunited Records and working down the lists, clicking on each transcription, I think I have found it. 1874 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland.

GENES REUNITED Record - Copied and Pasted from the Transcription...

England & Wales marriages 1837-2008
First Name Ellen
Last Name Ramshaw
Gender Female
Year 1874
Spouse
Image Quarter 4
Country England
County Northumberland
District Newcastle upon Tyne
District Number
Registry Number
Volume 10B
Page 152
Line Number 37
Entry Number
Category Births, Marriages & Deaths
Record set England & Wales Marriages 1837-2008
Collections from Great Britain
© brightsolid online publishing ltd


For Marriages before 1912, indexes will not give you the marriage match. Genes Reunited's transcriptions will provide the match if only one couple were married that quarter. If more than one couple married in the same 3 month period GR will give you a list of other people who married that quarter, and your JOHN HILL was one of them.


England & Wales marriages 1837-2008
First Name John
Last Name Hill
Gender Male
Year 1874
Spouse
Image Quarter 4
Country England
County Northumberland
District Newcastle upon Tyne
District Number
Registry Number
Volume 10B
Page 152
Line Number 54
Entry Number
Category Births, Marriages & Deaths
Record set England & Wales Marriages 1837-2008
Collections from Great Britain
© brightsolid online publishing ltd

The letters and numbers involved are reference numbers. If you give the details to the GRO you should be able to purchase the actual MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE copy. In fact, the names, place and year should be enough.

From 1912 the marriage partner's surname is provided on the index which makes it slightly easier.



Btw, Our Mr Magoo has posted another link for a £1 FMP month code number.
Just click on the below link to his thread Julie if you are interested.
http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/general_chat/thread/1364850

That is the correct marriage Jem and Ann have posted, as I had originally posted on page 1 of this thread, cut and pasted below to save you going back....

"Given the name of John's mother in law, Mary Ramshaw, in the 1881 census, I would propose this potential marriage from FreeBMD instead of the one Margaret suggested. Remember the 1881 census showed John to have been born in Newcastle upon Tyne.

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl

Marriages Dec 1874
Hill John Newcastle T. 10b 152<<<<<<<<<<<
Pape Isabella Stephenson Newcastle T. 10b 152
Ramshaw Ellen Newcastle T. 10b 152 <<<<<<<<<<<
Usher John Newcastle T. 10b 152

EDIT: A search at the GRO site would seem to confirm this maiden name of Ramshaw for Ralph's mother:

HILL, RALPH RAMSHAW <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
GRO Reference: 1882 D Quarter in TYNEMOUTH Volume 10B Page 157"

Kucinta

The parish records for the marriage of Elizabeth Sharp & John Hill were ones I found on FMP, but were transcription only, there was no image for the marriage register.

I posted the full transcription earlier on this thread.

Ditto for the marriage of Thomas Ramshaw to Mary Hedley (nee Redhead/Readhead?)

and for the marriage of Mary Redhead/Readhead to William Hedley.

Baptism of Ellen/Eleanor was from familysearch.

I tried to say where I found the information as I went along, and also to say what information such as birth year, birth location, names of children, names of relatives, mother in laws, occupations etc that I found in census returns, I then used to cross reference with both FreeBMD and parish records to find marriages etc.

Kucinta

Hi Kucinta

Sorry, I hadn't realised the record had already been posted. :-)

As someone who uses the Genes Reunited Records primarily, I just thought I would show Julie how to use this site, as it can all be quite baffling to someone new to genealogy.

HI Jem :-)

No problem, just wanted to confirm it was the right marriage - we all need all the help we can get when starting out, and I know I'm not the best person for clearly explaining how things work. :-(

I did try to make my reasoning as transparent as possible on the thread so that hopefully Julie would understand the 'connections' I and others had made, when reading through the thread.

It is worth remembering that Tynemouth registration office covered a large area of south-east Northumberland, and a lot of names with that address will never have been within 20 miles of it! the towns also had local district names, so the actual birth etc. places will appear differently on censuses,registrations, parish records et c. (You will realise I am writing from experience here of OH's Northumbrian and Irish immigrant families!)

Hi, I'm sorry for confusion I didn't realise that marriages where recorded singly as on some of them have who they have married.I have played for parish records as well but Mon seen to come up.Im sure II will get the hang of it eventually. I also didn't realise I have 2 pages of answers on her. I will now try and order marriage certificate and will let you know how I get on. Thanks again for all your help I am internally grateful.
Julie.

Thanks for the link Jem I have just signed up x :-)

Julie, you will need to go into your account on FMP and uncheck the automatic renewal or you will be charged full price next month :-)

Thanks you Jem I have just taken Auto off x??

Hi Everyone, Thanks for you kind help I have just received my great great grandad marriage certificate today so excited. I was wondering if there is anyway I can put it on this chat page as some of it I can't read and thought maybe someone on here could read it for me.
Thank you
Julie x :-)

Put it into your Keepsake see bar above and alter the security to allow us to see it and put the link to it onto this thread.



:-)

Hi patinCyprus, Ive saved to keepsake . Do i now share with media ? How do i do the link ?please
Julie :-0

Look at the cert in Keepsake and to the right there is a list - title etc and at the bottom of this list is edit. Hit edit.

The list at the right has now expanded - you will see a picture of a lock and the word privacy drop that list down - hit share with everyone and make sure you hit save changes at the bottom.

Now copy the URL and paste it on here telling us it's the link. :-)