general question

[CindyR]

Hello, I am fairly new to UK research. I have located several births, marriages and deaths on Free BMD and have ordered my gr grandfathers birth cert there and have recieved it. However, if I were to continue ordering all the certificates I want it would be very expensive. I was wondering if a subscription to ancestry.com would give me the information and copies of the certificates.
Thanks
Cindy

[ChrisKelly]

No, I'm afraid not. Ancestry and related sites are just databases of the GRO indexes. You still have to order the certificates separately.

[Peter Goodey]

For England and Wales, you have to buy the certificates. Ancestry will not give you the information you need and will impoverish you even more quickly ;).

But of you're on your great grandfather now, you surely haven't got many more generations to go before you're at the start of civil registration.

[CindyR]

Thanks guys for the heads up about Ancestory. Peter, can you clarify exactly what you mean by using the civil registration please. Sorry guess I'm still too new at this. ha!
cindy

[Peter Goodey]

Civil registration -the registration by the state of births, deaths and marriages started in 1837 in England and Wales. For events before 1837 we have to resort to church records which served a similar purpose (but don't cost £7 each :D)

[Alan Welsford]

Additionally, it's perhaps stating the obvious, Cindy, but.....

Baptisms, marriages and burials in churches didn't stop in 1837 just because a system of civil registration was brought in in addition. The two sets of records can compliment each other from that date onwards.

So in the same way as you can piece families together before 1837 using church parish registers, you can of course do the same thing after 1837. In fact then it gets a whole heap easier, because censuses kick in too, and give you family groups at ten year gaps, (albeit you have to be careful with interpretation of these - with censuses it's easy to attribute a child to the wrong mother, for example, if there has been a remarriage).

I have pieced together large parts that are around the edge of my tree, often well into the 20th century, from parish registers, and data from the GRO indexes, (only - no certificates). The number of people involved is far more than I could possibly afford certificates for. I have to accept that for many I don't have an exact date of birth, (although these quite often are in parish records), and probably know only when someone was buried, not an actual date of death. If I can find a marriage at a church, the parish record tells me as much as a GRO certificate would.

Best of all, other than the costs of a visit to the records office, it's free. ;) I tend not to have the cash to splash out on certificates for more distant relatives, unless something looks particularly interesting.

Alan

[Alan Welsford]

Cindy,

Apologies, I should give my glasses a clean.

I have just remembered/noticed you are in Canada.

"Nipping down to a records office" to study archived parish registers may be a bit harder for you than me. :o

Alan

[CindyR]

Wow that was fast! anyways sooooo where might I get such info as my first interests dates are around 1880 - 1910. Perhaps I am already using it but just havent put two and two together. I have located some births and deaths I require on FreeBMD and for my gr grandfather I ordered his birth cert there. Like you said for L7 however due to our Canadaian exchange it ended up costing me over $20 which will add up. How else might I have gotten it? I also emailed the parish church for info and I know my FHS can order in the microfilm from there. I appreciate you bearing with me ha!
cindy

[CindyR]

Alan, ha ha! yep a quick trip doesnt look to be in my near future however I will get over there someday. Thanks for the info too!!! I guess I needed to hear that we dont "need" hard copies of "everything"! and please you are not stating the "obvious" I'm still trying to wrap my head around all the different sources and what each offers and where to go get certain info. thanks
Cindy

[Mona]

If 7 pounds cost you over $20 you were ripped off! It should be a tad over $14 at present exchange rates, which is what I was charged on my canadian credit card.

[Alan Welsford]

Well take the marriage example - lets assume the wedding was a church one.

After that wedding took place, details will have been passed both to a local registrars office, and ultimately also to the General Register Office (GRO).

When you are looking at FreeBMD, you are looking at a transcript of the GROs indexes, and it is the reference numbers you get from these indexes that allow you to buy a certificate from the GRO at GBP 7. (If you didn't know the reference, and had them search, the cost is higher).

If you knew sufficient detail, you can also go to the local registrars office holding details of that marriage, (the GRO reference is meaningless to them though), but it still costs GBP 7.

But the original record of the marriage is what's in the church register. As these are filled they are usually, (but not always!), deposited with a county records office or county archives of some type, (not to be confused with registrars or registration districts).

Hopefully these get filmed, and many of the films, as you say, can be ordered up for viewing at LDS Family History Centres, and maybe at other locations.

Where I think this approach may not work for you, is if you are looking at late 19th century and early 20th century dates. It varies enormously from place to place, but my recent experience has been that many registers from this late on, even if deposited with records offices, have not been filmed.

In fact I have encountered a case in a small parish where registers dating from 1813 are still those in use at the church, so no registers have been deposited with a records office in nearly 200 years!

The only way you will find out what's available for any parish, is by enquiring, or looking at online catalogues. I suspect you will struggle with dates as late as you are mentioning, though.

I have been lucky enough to get my hands on some original register, in recent weeks, but sadly that's not going to be possible for you.

I didn't mean to make this quite as pessimistic as it has ended up! :o

Alan

[CindyR]

Alan, that's ok I have already learned that this is a ongoing persuit and if you hit a "brickwall" just turn and go a different direction. I find it all sooo interesting that even not finding the info forces you to look somewhere else and you find something you weren't even looking for!! It's all part of the process!!
Cindy

[CindyR]

Mona,
thanks for that info I will check into it more......however I was charged $20.14 for a copy of a birth certificate and it's funny you mention the "ripped off" part as after I ordered it, I didnt really think too much of it until my husband pointed out that a pound is 2 and 1/2 times our $$!!! Sooo needless to say he wasnt to keen on me ordering many more which was disappointing to say the least as I had finally found the people I had been searching for for a while and had been emailing the Eastbourne records office and chatting with a lady there who was most friendly and helpful. she helped me find the correct "William" and his family and I told her I would be ordering the rest once I recieved the first one to make sure I got it and I'm sure she's wondering now why I havent!
This is definitely and costly and time consuming hobby!!! ha! But I love it!!
Cindy

[v.wells]

It is currently $2.02 thereabouts to the pnd. I get charged around $14. It depends on credit card and how they do the exchange rate at and what they charge to do the exchange. I don't have extra charges on Mastercard. But I live in Alberta where we do not have a sales tax, only the GST and MC doesn't charge GST on exchange. It also depends on which bank the MC is drawn on. It was expensive when the $ was lower in value. I ordered 7 certs in Feb =49 pnds=$98 about. But I have to agree, it does add up. I order directly from GRO.

[*bunty*]

I did have that outlook as far as paying for certs goes, and swore I would only buy a couple :o. As it stands I have more than a couple ;) (and the Australian exchange rate compared to the UK pound is not that pretty either). In the end you really need solid evidence rather than assuming a certain person is yours because the record seems to fit. In fact I had attached the wrong Parish family to my tree and claimed them as mine because I didn't have a certain birth certificate. When I got it, it allowed me to pursue the right family - Denbighshire not Flintshire, Wales ;).

[CindyR]

Thanks to everyone for all the info.I have talked to my local FHS and they are ordering in some films for me. They also confirmed that direct ordering from GRO for certs is the only way to obtain them from UK and that the cost is approx $20 each. (yipees) On one hand they agree you dont need "hard copies" for everyone but also that there is a greatly chance of adding the wrong person then especially with very common names. I guess I will just have to a little $$ each month to order ha ha!
Cindy

[Mona]

I received Four certificates last month, 28 pounds, and was charged $57.33 on my BMO mastercard. If they were $20 each, it would have been $80. A single one last week cost me $14.08. Slightly lower exchange rate that day.