General Chat

well, we all learn not to trust the information on any bmd!

My grandparents both lied needlessly about their ages when they married ....... needlessly, because they still made themselves look under age (20 and 18 instead of 19 and 17) AND parents and siblings (at least of the bride) were present at the wedding.

My grandfather's death certificate has the wrong date of birth ........ he lied all his life about when he was born (date, month AND year!) so that was the date that my uncle gave to the Registrar.

I have marriage and death certificates where the names are wrong .........

death certificates are particularly prone to being wrong as the information given is only what is known by the Informant, ie hearsay.

I was not commenting on anybody in particular just the generality.

It is a point of UK law though that Gro certs on their own unsupported by other evidence do not constitute legal proof. For instance a holder of a UK birth cert will require additional documentation when applying for a passport for the first time.

When researching my tree for each person up to 2nd cousin, gt.uncle etc I looked for two seperate items evidence other than the St Catherine Index. I found plenty of anomolies.

Rollo


my ancestors records date from the 1840s and 1850s. NOT WW1

During the post ww1 era a lot of couples remained unmarried because one or other of them was already married. There was no penalty for living in sin while penalties for bigamous marriages were high. Some risked it many didn't. There was no problem for the man to register his name on the birth cert. Thus the lack of a marriage cert was not a huge problem.

By around 1930 things had settled down with a bit of a rerun 1942-55.

The nature of the self declaratory UK bmd system is such that it cannot be relied on for legal proof esp births. In the case of titles and inheritance that can become a big issue.

"Lloyd George knew my father, my father knew Lloyd George
..."

IGP ................

I have several sets of ancestors, cousins who married cousins. same surname, small villages!

I have proof that each pair did marry and that certain children were children of those marriages (Parish Registers and /or certificates) .............. each one that I have checked on the GRO Index does not have the mmn showing

Others on this site and on other sites have also commented that mmn has not shown on known marriages between male and female with same surname.

GRO also acknowledged that this was a problem, as was the month vs year on a death certificate, and that they "were working to solve them".


Hence why I gave those warnings.

From what I have seen where mothers maiden surname name is same as married surname it DOES show.

e.g.

RIMMER, PETER WILLIAM
RIMMER
GRO Reference: 1865 S Quarter in ORMSKIRK Volume 08B Page 654

On the other hand if mmn is blank (-) then it is likely there is no father mentioned

e.g.

MARSHALL, ROBERT
-
GRO Reference: 1843 M Quarter in ORMSKIRK Volume 21 Page 553

Sylvia is quite right the Gro have recently (2016) added mother's maiden name to the index for births before 1911. Otoh for many purposes freemd is far more flexible even if it does not have this enhancement.

Neither does the enhancement compensate for dropping online access to the index records of 2007 and later.

Despite what Rollo posted .................

The new digitised GRO Index does have mmn if known, from July 1 1837 to ca 1916 ..................

Go to the GRO site using the link Nyx posted above

Click on Order Certificates Online

Click on Order Certificates Online and search the GRO historic birth and death indexes.

Set up your account (it's free). After that use the Login

Click on Search the GRO Indexes

Click on Birth (or Death)

Follow instructions.



NOTE:- if the mmn is the same as the baby's, then it will NOT show. This can be a problem if you have a mother who married a man with the same surname (eg cousins).

There is also a quirk in Deaths ................ the digitisation cannot distinguish between months and years. GRO is trying to sort this out. Until then you have to be aware that an age shown as 1 to 12 may be months or years!

Patricia, the link to the GRO index ( I meant to add it before) you have to register but it is free to use.

https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/indexes_search.asp

The Gro (St Catherines) index only has mothers name for birth records from Sep 1911. The mother's name is on the actual cert. The mother's name will be her birth name. The existence of a birth record with name of mother and father does not prove that the parents were in fact married though that was usually the case.

It was not compulsory to register births in England and Wales until the 1860s. In some rural areas eg Norfolk the rate of non registration was quite high.

The Gro index remains current but is only available online to 2006. After that you have to make a personal visit to Kew etc. Or the local reg office.

Buying the actual certificate is still the main way to see them

They cost £9.25 incl post and packing worldwide from GRO

You MIGHT find a few online.

No it isn't unfortunately , though you may find baptisms that help.

Also if you haven't tried it already the GRO index has mother's maiden name listed 1837 to 1915 which is a big help :-)

Is it possible to view birth ceritificates on here. I am a platinum member and it's a few years since I've used this site which has changed.
Thanks in advance
Pat