* Reliance on subscription sites FMP, Ancestry etc.

[dklbrooks]

When one is remote from the UK, and poor, one relies on the subscription sites for most of one's sources.

As I understand it these sites provide the transcription of the BMD certificates, and usually also an image
of the index page, which is of little value, and very occasionally, an image of the certificate itself.

I don't know about others, but going back earlier than grandparents you would be lucky to find original certificates
in existence, so if you want the media for the source to be the copy of the certificate, then you pretty soon would
run up hundreds of pounds at 9+ quid a person.

So all you posters that include the word "certificate" in the long or short source name, must have spent
a fortune at the GRO!

If you are not concerned about copyright, and only have the transcript and index image, I was wondering if they
would be considered "media" for a source?

[trevorrix]

There are no transcriptions of BMD certificates provided by Findmypast or Ancestry or FreeBMD. You only get searchable transcriptions and images of the BMD indexes.

I have a complete collection of BMD (birth marriage and death) certificates for my ancestors back to 1837 which is when those certificates were introduced in England and Wales. Fortunately the majority of those were purchased decades ago when the the cost was 8 shillings (40p) each. The cost now is £9.25 each although the GRO conducted a trial late last year when electronic PDF copies were supplied at £6.00 each. There is almost no alternative to purchasing these BMD certificates if you wish for the information that they contain. The exception is marriages where there are copies kept by the Church Of England (parish registers) many of which are available as images on subscription webstes online.

Before 1837 you have the marriage images already discussed plus baptism and burial images. The availability ranges from complete coverage for some counties to zero coverage for other counties. You have to use a combination of Findmypast and Ancestry because most counties are only available on one of those two subscription websites. Note that baptisms are different to births and burials are different to deaths. Prior to 1837 it is usually the case that there is no birth or death information recorded anywhere.

[DavidNewton]

...The cost now is £9.25 each although the GRO conducted a trial late last year when electronic PDF copies were supplied at £6.00 each....

I obtained one of these pdf copies simply to find out what they were. They are not image copies of the actual Certified Copy but are in fact clipped copies of the entry in the Registrar's book with the page header attached. So from my point of view it contains all the information that is entered on the certificate (without the surrounding Certified Copy etc stuff) at lower cost. These pdf copies are not currently available but I look forward to them becoming a standard option.

David

[dewilkinson]

In addition GRO now has a free search of birth and death indexes. For births you can now see the mother's maiden name and for deaths you can see the age, both back to 1837. I think this is fantastic as it gives you extra information for free and makes it much more certain that you are buying the right certificate.

Having the mother's maiden name has enabled me to find quite a few children who died young that didn't appear in census or baptism records.

The only down side is the search options are quite narrow +/- 2 years, males & females separately

Well done GRO!

[dklbrooks]

You are correct.
A lot of the ads use the word "certificate" misleadingly.
I do have a marriage certificate that must have come from the parish registers.
I cannot duplicate the search on FMP, so it probably came from the time that I had an Ancestry subscription.

But I need FMP for the UK newspapers, and I cannot afford both.
Genealogy can be an expensive hobby!

[trevorrix]

To be pedantic, a marriage from a parish register would be a marriage image, not a marraige certificate.

To make Findmypast and Ancestry more affordable, watch out for special offers and discounts. Findmypast was recently available for £1 for three months I think. Ancestry recently offered a 50% discount. Ancestry via topcashback.co.uk has a long running 25% cashback.

[gwilym'smum]

The Find My Past was for 1 month for £1. I asked but the 1939 "census" was not available with this option. I was offered a reduced 12month subscription for £120 but as I have Ancestry I too cannot afford both. I will have to make time to go to the local library! I found the GRO downloads very useful. Also the extended search has helped me find some relatives.
Ann

[rocksrock]

Could I point out another way to check BMD indexes and that this alternative way has the advantage that it is FREE and, IMHO the data quality is much better than the GRO Indexes.

This magic source is UKBMD.org.uk

GRO indexes are derived from copies of the Original index entries held by the Local Superintendent Registrar. Every quarter the Superintendent sent copies of that quarter's entries in his index to GRO who copied them and hand-wrote the entries into their index combining returns from all Superintendent Registrars.......all this copying and rewriting introduced errors, mis-spellings, entries being transposed, entries being lost, forgotten or whatever. All the online copies of the GRO Index whether digitized by GRO or by commercial enterprises or volunteers replicate all these error/omissions etc....................

UKBMD got their heads together and one of them wrote the appropriate software to record the data and make it fully searchable. Others made deals with the local Superintendent Registrars, so that the original indexes were scanned and then UKBMD volunteers transcribed the scanned indexes. This removes all the errors from the GRO process by sourcing the data direct from the original index. The index is transcribed and the local superintendent's index reference is given, plus the present location of the registers. You can search the index, find the entry you want: beside it you will find the local registrar's index reference (NOT the GRO index reference) and then you can order a certificate from the original registrars office. The system will print out an order form for you to complete and post. In some counties do on-line orders too. (Getting your certificates this way ensures your money goes to the local Registration Service which which does the front line work, rather than to the behemoth government outfit GRO whose indexes are not the fount of all truth that they want us to believe!)

Not all counties have gone down this path - in some cases the local Superintendent decided to do his/her own thing. Other counties lack co-ordinators or volunteers. The process is underway in Cumbria, Lancashire, Cheshire, North Wales, Staffordshire, West Midlands, Wiltshire - there may be others I have forgotten.

So...... go to UKBMD.org.uk choose your county and see what you can find. I believe North Wales have completed their indexes; the others are in progress at greater or lesser speed. The Lancashire and Cumbria data has been immensely helpful to my researches and the data quality is awesome. These indexes contain data which is completely missing from the GRO indexes..... and is my point of first reference. Even if your county has not got its data done in the UKBMD way, there is a huge amount of info to be found from these sites....................and all the searches done on the county index data on eg CumbriabMD are free. Certificates cost money but the data quality is well worth it to my mind.

[Baboon281]

I am a little confused about the ability to obtain certificates and where from. Reading the original question and replies in this post and others it seems that the only place to obtain an actual certificate is from the GRO at some cost. I have only been researching my family history for a year so am a newbie though have managed to trace my family in parts back to the early 1800's. Last night I looked into the marriage of Thomas REYNOLDS (born circa 1852) and Sarah EVANS (born circa 1854) and found their marriage on "FreeBMD" dated 04/05/1874 in Solihull, Warwickshire. Interestingly I found an image on the site from Warwickshire Parish Records of a page from the church records which details all the marriage information. Am I right in thinking this is the original record completed at the church and not the actual certificate (unfortunately I am not sure how to add an image to this post). If it is would I have to apply to the GRO for a copy of the certificate and if I did what additional information, if any, could I expect to get. Sorry for the lack of basic Genealogical Research knowledge.

[tatewise]

Your assumptions are all correct.
In the particular case of Marriages, the original church Register has the details that become the GRO Certificate, so the information should be the same, and the Date of the Marriage, the Register entry, and the Certificate are all the same.
Contrast that with Birth and Death where an informant Registers the event some time later.

See research:index|> Genealogy Research and in particular research:useful_research_web_sites|> Useful Research Web Sites for details of where various types of source document can be found. I think all those that have been mentioned, and more, are listed.

BTW: To attach an image to a posting use the Attachments tab below the Post a reply/Edit post box.

[AdrianBruce]

... I found an image on the site from Warwickshire Parish Records of a page from the church records which details all the marriage information. Am I right in thinking this is the original record completed at the church and not the actual certificate ...

Assuming that it is the Parish Register and not the Bishops' Transcript (completed as a "safe copy" every 12 months) then yes, it's the original record completed at the church. (You'd need to see what the website says to see whether it's a PR or BT - they are often nearly impossible to tell apart).

... would I have to apply to the GRO for a copy of the certificate and if I did what additional information, if any, could I expect to get. ...

You would need to apply to the GRO (for the centrally held certificate) or the local Superintendent Registrar's Office (for their version of the marriage certificate). However, do not do this. The church's entry should be identical in every respect to the others. Or to be a little more explicit, the church's entry should be identical to the local Superintendent Registrar's entry because both are completed at the same time and in the same place, by the same people. The GRO is a later copy of the local Superintendent Registrar's entry and therefore subject to all those arrows that can croup in during copying.

If I understand things correctly in fact there are usually 3 identical certificates completed at the same time in the church - the church's, the local Superintendent Registrar's and the bride and groom's.

[AnneEast]

If you have seen an image of a marriage giving date, names of the couple, ages, occupations, names of fathers etc then that is exactly the same as a certificate bought from the GRO for £9.25. Even the layout is the same ... in effect it is a certificate which was completed at the time of the wedding. These days that's what the bride and groom do while the music plays at the wedding just before they walk down the aisle!
This availability of such certificates from parish records available on a paid for website or by actually visiting the county archive is a great saving! Sadly birth and death certificates do not have the same avialabilty because they are not church ceremonies.
Anne
Edit to say, snap Adrian. Love the 'arrows that creep in' ..... predictive text??

[AdrianBruce]

Re UKBMD indexes. These can be hugely useful for 2 good reasons -
1. Births and Death are indexed at a sub-district level, not the district level seen in the GRO / FreeBMD indexes.
2. Marriages in churches and other chapels with their own marriage register are indexed by the actual church / chapel, rather than the district level seen in the GRO / FreeBMD indexes.

On the flip side, not all the UKBMD indexes include the mother's maiden name just introduced for all years in the GRO indexes. Some do. In other cases, the Superintendent Registrar stood on their dignity and claimed that since the mother's maiden name was not mandated in the GRO's instructions for the Superintendent Registrar's index, then it was not allowed. (I'll bet that they drink coffee even though it's not mandated in the GRO's instructions ).

[AdrianBruce]

... Love the 'arrows that creep in' ..... predictive text??

Manual brain power to identify a plausible error. I always remember the day I meant to write "finger trouble" in an incident report identifying the cause but, totally accidentally, wrote "fniger trouble" instead. It seemed appropriate!

[David Potter]

As an aside to all the good stuff already mentioned. One technique I use if you have an Ancestry subscription and use the Hints which often tag to another Member Tree researching the same family/individual. If the Hint proves valid; is to contact that Member and share Tree data to begin with and offer trades of supporting documentation, IE, Certificates and the like. Cheeky in a way and there needs to be a fair exchange or trade.

Please don't anyone mention Copyright issues or I'll have to go get my Lawyer.

David

[David Potter]

@Rocksrock

I just put UKBMD through a test with a known death event for North Wales which apparently is fully covered. It didn't find the record I was looking for. The GRO death cert has a county for Merionethshire which is now considered to be Gwynedd. Do you know if UKBMD takes account of County Boundary shifts over time? I wasn't able to enter Merionethshire as a county.

Certainly another string to our bow of free research - Thank You.

David

[trevorrix]

@Baboon281, it would not have been FreeBMD as in http://www.freebmd.org.uk where you found the date 4th May 1874 or the parish register marriage image. There are no exact dates or parish register marriage images on FreeBMD.

[AdrianBruce]

... Do you know if UKBMD takes account of County Boundary shifts over time? I wasn't able to enter Merionethshire as a county...

The actual search pages for NorthWalesBMD refer to a region, not a county - this is the current region and may or may not be the current Superintendent Registrar's area who provided the indexes. (I get a bit lost in what these things are....)

When SR's areas are amalgamated - or even split - the registers are actually moved to the new office controlling that area, though this may result in oddities where (say) birth and death registers for a town are at one office while marriage registers for the same town are at another. This is simply because books cannot be split if the geographic area is.

[dklbrooks]

Geez, that flushed out a lot of stuff!.

All this talk of registers, images of indices, certificates, and church "certificates", not to mention transcriptions is confusing.
Someone should write a BOOK.

Ever since I started my tree about 18 mths ago I have been made to feel dumb, because I was trying to work
out just what I was getting for my money to FMP and Ancestry - not much it seems.

At least the newspaper collections at FMP are, in my opinion the best for UK history.
This alone may make the subscription worth it.
On the other hand Ancestry is better for the Australian electoral rolls, so if like me you have family members
(and ourselves) who migrated from UK to Oz, so I need both!

[Gowermick]

I am truly surprised, reading previous replies, that no-one has mentioned the FREE FamilySearch website (FamilySearch.org). This truly fantastic site, is produced by the mormons (Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, or LDS for short), for their own use, but given freely to the rest of the world without any strings.

This amazing site has transcriptions and images of church registers and Bishop's transcripts for Births, Marriages, and Burials, as well as Census transcriptions, other church records etc.

Using their Catalogue search, one can find all sorts of records, some indexed and searchable, some unindexed but with images that are available to browse. If one registers with the site, ( with no obligation whatsoever to join their church), it opens up even more records to view.

The site covers the whole world, and without any fees whatsoever, I strongly suggest this site as the first port of call for all beginners. If so inclined, users can 'pay back' to the site, by offering to transcribe and index their images for them.

If you're lucky enough, you may have an LDS research centre nearby, where one can also access their site for free, with more of their records available than is normally seen via their website.

Finally, don't forget free access to some of the 'subscription' sites, offered by your local library. This doesn't just apply to GB, as I do know that this is available in Australian libraries too!

[DavidNewton]

@dklbrooks
In case you have not come across it there are Australian Newspapers at http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/ with free access.

David

[tatewise]

FamilySearch.org is listed in research:useful_research_web_sites|> Useful Research Web Sites along with the others.

There are many online tutorials on the UK GRO Registration process in the web sites listed above.
See research:course:dillington_course_notes|> Dillington Course Notes, and fhugdownloads:contents:service_england_wales_bmd_certificate_info|> Service ~ England & Wales BMD Certificate Information, and fhugdownloads:contents:service_uk_gro_online_index_search|> Service ~ UK GRO Online Index Search tutorial.

[AdrianBruce]

As a very rough estimate, I would contend that there isn't a lot of duplication between FamilySearch, Ancestry and FindMyPast (for England & Wales) once you get beyond the censuses, post-1837 civil registration indexes and WW1 Soldiers' Records. (Yes, there are other part duplications but for once I'm trying to be a bit broad brush)

What you will find is that those 3 have co-operated on a number of projects so that the indexes to Cheshire PRs (say) are on both FS and FMP but the images are only on FMP. This double indexing can be useful, especially where the FMP search criteria are a bit low grade. The reason that the images are usually only in one place will often be down to the Terms & Conditions agreed between the custodian of the originals and the database provider.

[mezentia]

"fniger trouble" = digital dyslexia

[rocksrock]

@David Potter

Sorry for slow reply.

I have just logged on to UKBMD, chosen Merionethshire from the list in the sidebar and opened it up. Choose the language you prefer and just fill in the search boxes.

The name North Wales BMD reflects that the Registration Service has become increasingly centralised over time, starting with changes that occurred in 1974 to local government boundaries in England and Wales and further changes that have occurred since. It also reflects computerisation of local government business and the need to manage costs of the service. So that the original Merioneth county became part of Gwynedd which in turn became (part of) North Wales.

If the original locality you are interested in falls within the present definition of North Wales, your record will be in North Wales BMD (assuming that I am correct in thinking it is all complete). The entry tell you the name of the original church/chapel concerned and will also tell you what organisation has custody of the records now. If you click on the under-lined reference number this will take you to a partially completed application form which will include the address where you get copies from! And if you are even luckier you can apply and pay online! The copy you receive may be a handwritten copy or it may be a facsimile or computer scan of the original - it depends on the facilities available at the office concerned.

With regard to UKBMD and mother's maiden name, my understanding is that the data is available in UKBMD...... BUT depending upon the particular superintendent registrar's interpretation of the rules, it may or may not be allowed to be displayed to the world via UKBMD. What can happen is that if a new superintendent comes on a scene where display of mother's maiden name was previously forbidden, that can change and the data will be revealed.... On the other hand, I know of one case where the earlier superintendent permitted "revelation" of the data and then a new one came along and forbade it.... .

My personal practice is that wherever possible I get a copy from the local registrar and only go to GRO where I have no choice. The data is better and I prefer my money to support the local service, not the central government.

As an aside about the Mormons data, my understanding is that it is derived from Parish Registers of Baptism, Marriages and Burials - it is not from Birth and Death registers. Again as I understand, in England at least the data is predominantly from the original parish registers. However, in Lancashire parishes the data is from the Bishop's Transcripts. For some reason, whoever was the decision maker in the Lancashire church organisation refused permission to copy the original parish registers, so Mormons had to make do with BTs...... There may be others such, but Lancashire is the one I know cos it affect s my researches.