Genealogy Chat

My G G Grandmother was born in Armagh, Ireland 1871
My G G Grandfather was born in Essex, England 1873

They moved to South Africa around 1900/1901 where they married and had 3 children (1902/1907/1909).

They returned to UK on 30 Jun 1911 and then went to Australia (husband in 1911 / wife and kids in 1913).

For the marriage and births of the children in South Africa, would these have had to be registered with UK as an 'overseas marriage / birth' or would they only have been registered in South Africa?

Having difficulty getting anything out of South Africa at all so trying to find an alternative option.

Cheers,

My guess is that they would not be rego'ed with the GRO, except possibly if your gg grandad was in the military. Normal civilian events would not be allowed to rego with the GRO after the Union of SA was formed, but this wasn't until 1910.

I don't actually know re SA, I'm just going on what happened in other parts of the Empire with "responsible government", specifically Canada, Newfoundland & Oz.

Marriages of, and births of children of, British citizens should have been registered as such.

These would probably come under Consular marriages/births................findmypast has records.

Flick - I doubt that - you can't now rego a SA birth with the GRO - see:


http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Registeringlifeevents
/Birthandadoptionrecords/Registeringorchangingabirthrecord/DG_175698
[You'll have to paste the 2 halves of the URL together - I broke it to stop the thread looking weird]
Countries in which you are not able to register a birth with British authorities
... South Africa ...
In these cases, please contact the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/births-deaths-marriages-civil/registering-a-birth
Exceptions
Please note that, because of their close links to the UK and documents being issued in English, we can’t register births which occurred in the following countries:
Australia; Canada; New Zealand; Republic of Ireland; South Africa; Overseas Territories

My guess is that was the case in the 1900s, and that births would be rego'ed with the provincial authority - whether these records are still in, say, Durban for Natal, Capetown for Cape Colony, Pretoria for Transvaal, etc, I don't know. I am pretty sure that BMD registration would not be handled at any higher level than that of the individual provinces - it still isn't in Canada or Oz (except Oz's provinces are called states).

Danny - have you even a rough idea of whereabouts in SA they lived?

mgnv

You may, of course, be entirely correct.........I don't have sufficient in-depth knowledge of such matters to say that you aren't

Danny...Have you tried Ancestry 24...It claims to have the largest data base of SA BMDs etc.

Thanks for the info guys. I have a copy of my G Grandmothers birth certificate and that states she was born in Johannesburg.

I have tried Ancestry 24 and I've contacted at least a dozen people in the South African equivalent to BMD with about 20 responses none of which actually tell me how to apply for one! Which is extremely frustrating.

I'll check out the links you posted.

Cheers.

Danny,

If you google

"applying for a south african birth certificate"


couple of sa gov sites come up that explains the procedure and what forms are needed to be filled and fee costs.

Hey Kay. I did that, sent away the application etc over 4 months ago and still no response. That's why I emailed at the start of October and still no proper response that doesn't involve 'hand balling' the request.

I had a friend who was in South Africa who tried to hand deliver a second application for me, but they wouldn't accept it as she was no relation etc.

Danny...You could try

ukinsouthafrica.fco.gov.uk

They may be able to help if your grandmother was Registered as a British Citizen.

Hi Danny,

Reading the small print---

All applications are sent to the Department of Home Affairs by Diplomatic frieght bag once a month and can take up to 6 months to process as from there it is a lenghtly process to locate and then deal with the request,

so seems you'll have for a few more weeks for a responce.....hold in there..