Genealogy Chat

Hi
Is it possible to order from GRO old birth certificates where the birth record is handwritten on the GR record or is that all there is? I've found a record from 1843 (on the GR site) that just gives "Vol. IV, Page 21" as a reference. Is there a birth cert I can obtain or if not, can I consult such a volume (if so, where?) to find out if the parents' names are given?
Thanks for any help.
Best wishes to all

hi,

yes you can order a "copy of the certificate and from then it will be handwritten as it was entered in the original register office registers.

www.gro.gov.uk

just follow the onscreen instructions and quote details and make your payment,,,,,.overseas currency accepted , >>>.


vol
page.
name
quarter..m/jun/sep/dec.
year.

date when born,where born & parent/parents name will appear if app, plus ocupation of father,

Great! Thanks very much, Kay. Will do that.
Best wishes

Your gg gran or whoever will have gone to the local subdistrict rego office, say the Leather Market one, to rego your g gran's birth. She would have signed the register and gone home.
At the end of the quarter, the local registrar will copy out all the BMDs for that quarter and send them to the Bermondsey district superintendent. He'ld collect all the subdistrict BMDs and send them off to the GRO in London (later Southport) and they'ld take them district by district and bind them into volumes, and then produce an index covering all the volumes (this index is what you'll have seen).

You can order a BMD cert from either the Southwark Rego Office (they hold the old Bermondsey registers now) or the GRO. The GRO has digitalized their registers, so you will now get an image of the original registrar's copy (which was probably done by a clerk, not him for all it matters). If you order from Southwark, they'll probably write you out a fresh copy. Most local offices lack the capability of digitizing their images, so you likely won't see your gg gran's signature.

Two exceptions I know of are Birmingham and Scotland.
(In Scotland, they decided to digitize the local copies and collect them on their SP website.

Marriages also are a different sort of exception. Pre-1898, CofE, quakers and jews kept registers as well as the registrar. (A non-conformist marr would need the registrar to attend, so they could sign his register, and obviously his register would be signed in a rego office marr.) The C of E, etc "minister" would send a copy of his marr registration to the district office pretty quick - I think it was the district office's responsibility to make the quarterly copies for the GRO (but I'm not sure). After 1898, all sorts of non-conformists were authorized to keep registers (but not RC's until 1980-ish).

When an official register is full, it gets sent somewhere - the subdistrict ROs get sent to the district RO. The church registers get sent usually to the county records office. The older non-conformist and RC registers may have been signed, but they're not really official public records, and it's up to the church what they do with them. The RC regos are usually sent to the diocese archive.

For info on all aspects of BMD's you can do no better than look on here

http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/indexbd.htm

You should use FreeBMD not Genes.
They have altered the record to modern format.
EG
Sep 1843
ADAMS George Thomas Bermondsey 4 21

Dear all
Thank you very much for all your suggestions and info. Much appreciated.

Mgnv - thanks in particular for taking the time to provide me with so much information. I don't mind if I don't see my great great gran's signature in this case (I'm finding quite a few were illiterate in those days anyway) but I'd like to get additional confirmation on her name and her husband's name to confirm whether I've found the right family on census returns. According to my research so far, my great gran's mother was a widow who married a widower. The latter already had a family but then had two more children (my great gran Elizabeth Letitia and her brother). Not long afterwards, he died and the two children plus mother went into Bermondsey workhouse. On Eliz Letitia's marr. cert her father is called Benjamin Joseph but on the census returns I can only find a Joseph Benjamin. I know this is probably the same person but I'm looking for additional evidence (I also have her mother's name, maiden name and first marr. name - according to the census, if I've found the right family). I'd like to be sure as otherwise my ancestral history at that point could have been entirely different and if I haven't found the right parents I don't want to delve further back. I also wonder if the birth cert. would give the address of Eliz's birth as I work near Bermondsey and could check out whether the street/house still stands! I've found the site of the workhouse (now a park - with a notice to say what it was) and St. Mary Magdalen Church where she and her brother were baptised.

You also mention the possibility of getting the cert from Southwark Reg Office - would this be any cheaper/quicker than GRO? Again, could I call in?

Thanks again for all your help.

Regards

If you want to give some names and birth dates I can have look on London Baptism and Marriages for you

Jennifer

there is this baptism
father's occ is Printer

Name: Joseph Benjamin Chesney
Record Type: Baptism
Estimated Birth Date: abt 1846
Baptism Date: 7 Jun 1846
Father's name: Joseph Benjamin Chesney
Mother's name: Jane Chesney
Parish or Poor Law Union: Bermondsey St Mary Magdalene
Borough: Southwark

Name: Elizabeth Letitia Chesney
Gender: Female
Baptism/Christening Date: 01 Jun 1849
Baptism/Christening Place: St. Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey, Surrey, England
Birth Date:
Birthplace:
Death Date:
Name Note:
Race:
Father's Name: Joseph Benjamin Chesney
Father's Birthplace:
Father's Age:
Mother's Name: Elizabeth Chesney
Mother's Birthplace:
Mother's Age:
Indexing Project (Batch) Number: C01043-0
System Origin: England-EASy
Source Film Number: 254560
Reference Number: yr 1848-1852 p 198
Collection: England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975

hope we are not barking up the wrong tree:
marriage;

Name: Joseph Benjamin Chesney
Age: Full Age
Estimated birth year: abt 1843
Spouse Name: Jane Hulkes
Record Type: Marriage
Marriage Date: 23 Apr 1843
Parish: St Alphege, Greenwich
County: Kent
Borough: Greenwich
Father Name: Joseph Benjamin Chesney
Spouse Father Name: Jane Hulkes

Both men are Printers but it says Joseph is a bachelor

In answer to your earlier question, certs from the GRO are 9.25 sent to anywhere in the world.

Certs from the local RO are £9.00, which may or may not include postage, which some charge extra. Check with the individual RO, most have a page on the internet.

As far as how long it takes, bit like measuring a piece of string.

Normally the GRO send out within a few days, but can take longer if they are busy, eg. when Who do You Think You Are? is on the telly.

Local RO's can vary too. Small ones are usually same or next day, larger ones can be much longer and some will only guarantee within 28 days for genealogical research purposes.

Again, check on the internet or phone to find out.

Hi
Thanks so much for your help. Some of this has been kindly checked before by other people on the site (on an earlier thread) so I don't want people to duplicate this or get annoyed! The Eliz Letitia Chesney who got baptised on 1 June 48 is indeed my ancestor, but I think the marriage of JB Chesney to Jane Hulkes and the baptism of their son JB Chesney born in 1846 and baptised on 7 June 46 relates to a son of the first marriage I mentioned. It doesn't help that they all have the same or similar names! Eliz was baptised with her bro, also called Benjamin Joseph on the same date (1 June 48), but I'd like to get her cert to be sure her father is the one who died a few months later that year. Her mother should be Elizabeth too (Russell/Pierce). I'll certainly order the certificate to check. My only doubt is that on her marr certificate to William Andrew Birch it says her father is Benjamin Joseph not Joseph Benjamin.
Thanks again everyone!

On thmarriage cert of Elizabeth Letitia it does say her father is a Compositor which is I think the same as a printer

Groom's Name: Joseph Chesney
Groom's Birth Date:
Groom's Birthplace:
Groom's Age:
Bride's Name: Elizabeth Russell Or Pearce
Bride's Birth Date:
Bride's Birthplace:
Bride's Age:
Marriage Date: 19 Jun 1842
Marriage Place: Saint Dunstan,Stepney,London,England
Groom's Father's Name:
Groom's Mother's Name:
Bride's Father's Name:
Bride's Mother's Name:
Groom's Race:
Groom's Marital Status:
Groom's Previous Wife's Name:
Bride's Race:
Bride's Marital Status:
Bride's Previous Husband's Name:
Indexing Project (Batch) Number: M05576-5
System Origin: England-ODM
Source Film Number: 801585
Reference Number:
Collection: England Marriages, 1538–1973

RutlandBelle - I agree this looks like further evidence!
Safc - it's a shame that the marr that you found doesn't include the name Benjamin (either first or middle name) as that would confirm it for me. I suppose they don't always include both names on a marr. cert. but on Elizabeth Letitia's it said father's name Benjamin Chesney! If there is no further evidence on EL's birth cert, I guess I'll have to conclude that this marriage does relate to her parents then.
Thanks!

Hi again, on the marr cert for Elizabeth as you say it has her father as Benjamin Joseph Chesney and a witness has the same name. it doesn't actually say her father is deceased though and on another marriage on the same page the vicar has written deceased by the parent's names.

The other witness is Emma Bagley , does the name mean anything?

Ah, good point, RutlandBelle! This could be the lead I'm looking for (fact that it doesn't say her father is deceased so might not be the same one!). Yes, I have an Emma Bagley on my tree. She is the niece of William Andrew Birch who Eliz Letitia married. But where do I go from here?!
By the way, I have to go somewhere now so won't be back on here until late tonight but if you have any inspiration, it would be very welcome! Thanks for your help.

so there are 2 marriages :

Name: Joseph Chesney
Age: Full Age
Estimated birth year: abt 1842
Spouse Name: Elizabeth Russell
Record Type: Marriage
Marriage Date: 19 Jun 1842
Parish: St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney
County: Middlesex
Borough: Tower Hamlets
Father Name: Robert Chesney
Spouse Father Name: William Pearce

and

Name: Joseph Benjamin Chesney
Age: Full Age
Estimated birth year: abt 1843
Spouse Name: Jane Hulkes
Record Type: Marriage
Marriage Date: 23 Apr 1843
Parish: St Alphege, Greenwich
County: Kent
Borough: Greenwich
Father Name: Joseph Benjamin Chesney
Spouse Father Name: Jane Hulkes
as the second one is after the first one perhaps he is the son of the older Joseph who is a widower. Both their occupations are given as Printer

you probably have this but I'll post anyway
1841
Name: Joseph Chesney / Printer
Age: 50
Estimated birth year: abt 1791
Gender: Male

Civil Parish: St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey
Hundred: Brixton (Eastern Division)
County/Island: Surrey
Country: England


Registration district: St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey
Sub-registration district: Leather Market
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members: Name Age
Joseph Chesney 50
Ann Chesney 50
Louisa Chesney 25
Letitia Chesney 20
Joseph Chesney 19 /Printer
Alfred Chesney 16
Henry Chesney 12
George Chesney 9

Death

Deaths Mar 1842
CHESNEY Ann Elizabeth Bermondsey 4 16


so it looks as if it was the older Joseph who married Elizabeth and the younger one who married Jane

1851
Name: Joseph Chesney /printer
Age: 29
Estimated birth year: abt 1822
Relation: Head
Spouse's name: Jane Chesney
Gender: Male
Where born: Ewel, Surrey, England

Civil Parish: Rotherhithe
Ecclesiastical parish: All Saints
County/Island: Surrey
Country: England

Registration district: Rotherhithe
Sub-registration district: Rotherhithe
ED, institution, or vessel: 12
Neighbors: View others on page
Household schedule number: 21
Household Members: Name Age
Joseph Chesney 29
Jane Chesney 35 wife
Jane Chesney 7
Joseph Chesney 6
Alfred Chesney 3
Maria Chesney 1
Ann Maria Hawkins 40

then the death of Joseph senior
Deaths Sep 1849
Chesney Joseph Benjamin Bermondsey 4 74

have a good evening

Jennifer