Genealogy Chat

Meg's not quite right - for births and deaths, the local register contains the signature of the informant. Usually, local rego offices don't have a digitizing capability, so all you can get are copies of the local registers. The only exceptions to this I know of are Birmingham and Scotland, In SCT, SP made images of the local regos, not the GROS copy.

For marrs, Sylvia is correct if the vicar is authorized to keep an official register. In that case, the vicar is authorized to issue m.certs, and m.certs issued at the time of the ceremony will often contain original signatures. Those he issues later won't (apart from his own).

Pre-1898, only C of E, jews & quakers could keep registers. After 1898, all flavours of non-conformists were authorized to keep registers (RCs had to wait until 1980-ish). In the case of an early non-conformist marr or even a later RC marr, the registrar had to attend, and his own register was the official one that had to be signed, so these Registrar Attended marrs as well as rego office marrs will be at the local office. In Wales, it was the C of W that was the established church and always authorized to keep regos. Note that more than 50% of marrs in Wales (and Durham) were non-conformist.

For clarification with Sylvia's post - the vicar only sent batches of marrs to the local office, not all bmds.
At the end of each quarter, the local registrar in a su-district would send a copy of his entries for that quarter to the district superintendent, who would then forward them to the GRO, maybe supplementing them with copies from an older rego in his possession. The sub-districts forwarded completed regos to the superintendent. A local B or D rego had 500 entries at 5 per page.

Meg

as I understand it



marriage certs from local offices are copies of the copy of the marriage certificate


The original marriage certificate is in the Parish Register, and stays in there.

The Parish Register is kept in the church, or sent to the Deanery or other authorised place after the book is filled or the church decommissioned.



The vicar gives 1 or more copies of that certificate to the bride (I have 10 copies!!)

Then he sends a copy to the Registry Office who copy it into their records ........ he will usually send batches of bmds to the local Registry Office at approximately 3 monthly intervals.


The Registry Office then send the information down to GRO at regular intervals, and they were copied into the GRO record books.





sylvia

I get confused with diferent format of certificates.

Can someone advise? I think mgnv might know.

I know that marriage certs from local offices are copies of the original certs, and are often the "long form" and show the real signatures of the bride, groom and witnesses, if they could write. Marriage certs from the GRO are written in the hand of a GRO clerk. Birth and Death certs have no signatures of anyone so it doesn't really matter what form they come in, whether typed, handwritten by a modern-day clerk, or copies of that hand-written by a clerk 150 years ago.

Is that right?

If you mean a cert that was obtained in 1940 yes it could be hand copied or typed.
but any modern copy of any cert from the GRO will be a "scanned"/digitised image, superimposed onto a certificate template,would it not?

Bob

update


the one I found on ancestry was correct ..... so it's something to do with GR


where do GR's transcriptions come from? Are they from fmp??



sylvia

Indeed it does, mgnv

it was in the correct quarter, name spelled as Angeline sent it to me


unless there was another person with the same name


However, should wait to get confirmation that it is indeed the correct registration from Angeline.



sylvia

Bob - a 2010 copy of a 1940 birth from the GRO might be a digital image of the GRO register entry, but a 1940 copy from the GRO might be handwritten or typed - I haven't seen a 1940 digital image - presumably all their digital imaging gear was taken over for war work.

Sylvia - thanks for the update. So looks like a GR problem.

Just to say

Angeline sent me the name, I've found it on ancestry, and pm'd it to her.


It was not mis-spelled on ancestry.



sylvia

also

those from the local office for births are green, whereas those from the GRO births are red......

typed.??....

.....is that usual? all of my so called original Long GRO certs appear to be copies of handwritten text.............

Bob

however the versions obtained from the local registrars office ARE typed

Never ever did that even enter my mind, the thought of adoption is REALLY out of the question, I know the family

I have a full cert stating

1-DOB
2-Name
3-Sex
4-Name & Surname of Father
5-Name, Surname and Maiden surname of Mother
6-Occupation of Father
7-Signature and descrition of residence (no signature though as it's all typed)
8-When registered
9- Signature of registrar (typed again)
10- Name entrered after reg- blank

Sig of registrar is on the bottom of the cert

So I would say the copy I have is a full cert. I checked again just to be sure and nothing. I only pointed this out and asked a question as it seemd strange, life is though x

It could also be down to a spelling mistake, . On I am not on ancestry with my birth name , something else , cos they spelt it wrong !

Angeline,

Sites such as Ancestry are provided with copies, usually on microfilm, of the official records from the General Register Office, so it is not a question of them having correct or incorrect facts, they have the 'Official' and only facts. The only question that we could have is that the information has been indexed incorrectly by their transcriber, so does not show up when doing a search.

Also, have you considered the suggestion, made earlier, that the person had been adopted, in which case the details will NOT appear in any published index? This is the reason that you were asked to supply the exact wording that appeared on the certificate. See Geraldine's post above.

I understand that some get missed off I had a simular problem with ancestry. I had to inform them that they had something missing as I had seen it at a records office in Huntingdonshire but there was no record of it on their site. No one is perfect i understand that, but then yet again we are all paying for membership and we sort of trust them to have the correct facts (or near as...lol).

Just checked births with the same surname and loads came up, cousins, father in law, uncles,aunties, siblings but he was lot listed and I know he was born lol
Thanks once again for all your responses, keeps us on out toes and its such fun when you find a loved one xxx

It was probably just missed off the index - it does happen. I helped a lady once who had found what looked like twins in a family but could only find the birth reg on the index of one. She checked with the Registry Office where the births were registered and there definitely had been twins.

Have you looked at the index page where it should be? Is the page there? If not, maybe GR have missed transcribing it.

Just wanted to thank you all for your thoughts but really there is no story to tell apart from I could not find this birth or record of birth on HERE.
I just could not find him on here and thought that very strange seeing as I have his birth cert and the rest of the family are shown and he is not. Could not sleep last night so was going through all the births with the same surname and his did not come up as I said before all the others did but not him.

This cert has sections 1-10.
All I wanted to know was why this birth does not show on here, that was all. It just seemed strange that this one even having a birth cert does not come up in the records on this site !!!!!!!!!!! and yes I checked several times and different ways but nope its not on here xx

The GRO might misread what's written on their copy, or the copyist at the local office might have made a mistake on the copy sent to the GRO, so the names at the local office can differ from those at the GRO. The GRO have tens of millions of b.certs, so there will be errors made.

You might have a b.cert issued by the local office, not the GRO. I think a GRO b.cert of that era says:
Certified to be a true copy of an entry in the certified copy of a Register of Births in the District above mentioned.
Given at the General Register Office, Somerset House, London, under the seal of said office, the 1st day of January 1968 (or whatever)

I don't have a local b.cert of this age - the closest in time is a d.cert. It says:
I, John Smith, Registrar of Births and Deaths for the sub-district of Knaresborough in the County of York (w.R.) do herby certify that this is a true copy of Entry No. 123 in the Register Book of Deaths for the said Sub-district, and that this Book is now legally in my custody.
[NB Knaresborough is a sub-district of Claro RD]

Are you looking in the right quarter/ You have 42 days ie 6 weeks to register a birth so it may come in the next quarter.For instance my dad was born 28th Dec 1907 and he was reg in mid jan 1908 so his birth in Mar qtr 1908.
I was born in the 3rd week of march and my birth is reg in the June qtr.

EDIT: crossed with your posting

So funny, it's defo printed out or I should say typed 27/6/1968 as date of registered, mine has name of informant but his does not. Just seems strange as his dad, cousins, sister and children are all showing but not him.

It doesn't matter too much when they were born - what really counts is when they were registered - this is probably in column 8. Does it say 1968 or 1969?