Genealogy Chat

Can anyone tell me the best way to search the 1837 site. I have a birth certificate now for my g.grandfather which has his father's name and his mother's maiden name. I have searched the IGI for their marriage but no luck. The 1837 site means I have to make a guess,I think, about 20 years previous. The only thing is you have to go year by year and also each quarter which takes a lot of your money up. Can anyone tell me a quick way to do it please. Thank you May

Hi, Mary, I assume that FreeBMD must not yet have indexed the period or location you need, otherwise you should find them there. I would try to narrow down the search by whatever means possible. If you can find them in a census (or preferably more than one), that would tell you their ages and the ages of their children. That can often give a clue to a date of birth for each parent, and a date of marriage about a year before the birth of the oldest child. Clearly there are drawbacks to this approach. People may not have known their age exactly, or may have lied about their age on marriage and carried on lying. Children may have died young so that the marriage was long before the eldest survivor, or the wife may have been pregnant on marriage. However, I have found that this approach gives an answer to a year or two. An 1837 search then becomes possible, although it can still involve a lot of pages if it is a common name. For a marriage, try looking up the rarer name first, then checking for the same year and quarter that the correct name comes up if it is before the date when spouse names appear in the index. I am sure that there are other possibilities which other people may suggest, but in the end, trawling the pages in 1837 cannot be avoided, other than by visiting the original indexes in London, or looking at microfilms in libraries (which I find tedious and prone to giving eye-strain). I hope this is a bit of help. Good luck in your search. Stan Driver

Stan, Thank you very much for your advice. I am a novice at this although I do spend hours searching and sometimes lucky. I have printed out your advice and will work from it. Thank you for help it is much appreciated Best Wishes May