CIVIL REGISTRATION
The records compiled on births, marriages and deaths by the state, starting from the early to mid19th century, are essential to our research, and much of the data is freely available before purchasing certificates. In England and Wales, indexes from 1837 to 1983 are available from the volunteer-run FreeBMD project at freebmd. org.uk. While these do not offer the full date of an event, they do note the relevant year and quarter, and the registration district. In addition the General Register Office (GRO) ( www.gro. gov.uk) offers free indexes to English and Welsh birth records from 1837 to 1916 and deaths from 1837 to 1957.
Note that these indexes are a little more confusing, in that rather than give a number for a quarter they give a letter for the last month, so “M” is January to March, “J” is April to June, “S” is July to September, and “D” is October to December. For birth records, however, you can use a mother’s maiden name in a search across the full range – on FreeBMD this can only be done from the middle of 1911 onwards. FamilySearch ( familysearch.
org) also has databases of free GRO indexes for births from 1837 to 2008, marriages from 1837 to 2005 and deaths from 1837 to 2007, while various regional projects also exist, such as Lincolnshire Marriage Indexes ( mi.lincolnshiremarriages.
org.uk) for the period 1837 to 1911. ScotlandsPeople ( scotlands people.gov.uk) indexes Scottish records from the start of civil registration in 1855 to almost the present day. The indexes are now free to consult, so you can identify the year and registration district where an event was registered. For 1855–1875, indexed information from Scottish births and marriages, including names and dates, are within FamilySearch’s International Genealogical Index, but not deaths.
Records from Ireland’s General Register Office are being digitised and made freely available on irish genealogy.ie, providing access to original birth registration records older than 100 years, for marriages over 75 years, and for deaths over 50 years. Crucially the records include the whole of Ireland prior to the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921. Records are still being added; the final batch – marriages from 1845 to 1869, and deaths from 1864 to 1877 – is due by mid-2018. Although the records are free, the search fields are fairly basic. To help locate early records for the north of Ireland before partition, geni.
nidirect.gov.uk offers free searches of its birth, marriage and death records, providing exact dates; images of the original records can then be located at Irish Genealogy.