Genealogy Chat

Hi All,
Maybe it's just me being naive!!
yesterday i was adding family to my Ancestry tree & it informed me that it matched someone else tree, i looked at this persons tree & they had scanned a marriage cert for said relly!! I was suprised to see that the copy was different to my cert, all the details were the same but you could clearly see from the handwriting that it was different.
I always presumed that the GRO had the original (or a copy of it) & just copied these and sent them out, How can i gain info from certs such has handwriting when different copies are floating around??

Martin

Are you sure it came from G R O .I get my certs from local registers office,and they are usually copied from originals and signed by Registar.
Kay

The GRO doesn't have the originals of any certs - it has copies produced from the originals. The handwriting on these is that of the clerk who copied them.
Some local offices copy out the info and some produce facsimile copies where one can see the actual writing of the participants.

Andy

I have our original marriage certificate.
It is handwritten but my signature and the signature of one of the witnesses(my sister) are identical.
My wife is adamant that we signed a ledger and the certificate was produced by a clerk from that ledger.

Hi Sheila
Does that mean we agree?
All handwriting on certificates is done by a registrar.

For non-recent Scottish BMD certificates, one normally buys an (uncertified) image of the whole page of the register. See:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?r=554&408
for (free) examples. This means you get to see multiple entries at once, and it's clear that the only original signatures in these registers are those of the informants on B/D entries (plus the registrar's).

From some of the certs that I have bought I get the impression that they photocopy the extract from the register onto the cert. I decided this because on some it looks as if there is a bit of some other writing above or below the writing pertaining to my ancestor/s.
The only way to get a copy with your ancestors actual writing is to get a photocopy of the Parish Register page where they signed, I would imagine.
Huia.

I have a copy of my full birth certificate, obtained from the GRO a couple of years ago(my father only got the short version when registering me) and it is a scan of the original. I was registered 1964 South west esses (Stratford, east London)

Janet - The one you have from the GRO is a scan of the copy held at the GRO. The original is held at the local Office (in your case, Stratford). All certs from GRO are like this (i.e scans of a copy, albeit a copy done at a similar time to the original). The only way to get a scan of the original is via the local office, and only then if it is an office that scans rather than transcribes.
Rob

so the possible/probable answer to Martin's question then is that he and this other person got their copies of the marriage certificate from 2 different places.


One got it from the GRO, and this is a scan of the copy that they have


and the other person possibly got it from the local Registray Office ..... and that one is either a modern day copy of the copy they have OR may be a scan of the copy they have




BUT in neither case is it a copy of the original ............... so you are only seeing the handwriting of clerks, not the ancestors.




sylvia

I will add here that we got 10 (yes TEN) copies of our marriage certificate ....... main reason we were leaving the country and it was thought we might need several copies, not sure why 10 was settled on.



The vicar apparently entered much of the information on each certificate the night before (which was not quite legitimate!!), then after we and our witnesses had signed the REGISTER, he sat down and copied out those signatures and other information onto each of the certificates.


We had to kill a lot of time in the vestry!!!

.......... and our musician friend played a lot of music on the harmonium that had replaced the organ 2 days before our wedding.


Oh, and we've never had to give away any of our copies .. we've always got them back when we have had to send one away.


so we still have all those copies in the safe!



sylvia

i'm not trying to disagree with you all, but i am just a little confused. i have a letter signed by my great grandfather and the signature on the bottom is exactly the same as the one on his marriage cert.surely a person can't copy a signature that well!

Lee.

Lee
We are all feeling our way on this.
I have looked at all the marriage certs.that I have
and along the bottom there is a statement
which varies but means essentially the same.

A marriage 25 june 1904
I certify,that the foregoing is a true extract from the register.dated 25 june 1904

Have a look at the following link, there are examples of local office issued scanned and handwritten certs as well as examples of a GRO cert.


http://www.familytreeforum.com/wiki/index.php/Scanned_and_Handwritten_Certificates_Guide



Also at the top of a GRO issued cert it will state the certificate was issued by the General Register Office, local issued certs obviously don't have this but neither do they state they come from a particular office.

Glen

Thank you all for your thoughts, opinions on this matter.
It would appear that the cert i have is from the Sheffield records department, and the other cert is from the GRO,
As on the bottom of mine it states,
" certified to be a true copy of an entry in a register in my custody"
While the second one states along the simular lines but instead of it saying "my custody" states about being at the General Records Office.
Also mine is the elongated copy whilst the other is the A4 size.
Once again,
Thanks for replying

Martin