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Thread: Vol. and Page

  1. #1
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    Default Vol. and Page

    I think my question will show I'm new to on-line searching so I hope someone can help me. When looking at death and marriage indexes, there are two columns marked Vol. and Page, to what do these refer, Howard.

  2. #2
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    Hi Howard,

    I presume you're referring to the GRO Index. GRO is the General Register Office, now based in Southport, and is the central 'office' for obtaining copies of BMD certificates.
    https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/
    If you're not entirely happy ordering online then there's phone and snail mail links in the 'contact us' section.

    You can order certificates from some local offices, but they sometimes cost a little more.

    Now back to the question . . . . .

    Vol and page refer to the reference numbers used by the GRO to identify a record, though equally important are the quarter, year, and registration district.

    If you're searching on FreeBMD https://www.freebmd.org.uk/
    (which in my opinion has simply the best search engine ever) then by clicking on the volume number or the district name then you can get further information.

    As an example, search for marriages for John Wigginton. Leave the date blank, because there aren't that many people with that name.
    Scroll down to March quarter 1862, Stamford registration district.
    Click on Stamford, and you get a link to all of the places in that district. (Stamford's quite interesting because it has places in several counties.) At the top of the page it gives basic details such as the registration county, the date the district was created and also abolished, and the different volume numbers used over the years and for which years. And if you click on the place names where the registers are currently held you get an alpha list of the addresses for all the local offices in England and Wales with associated details (phone numbers, etc).

    Page numbers - if you click on the page number you get a list of all the other people listed on that page. Extremely useful for marriages prior to 1912 when the GRO finally began to list spouses's surnames in the Index.
    So if you click on the 385 for that 1862 marriage, there is one other name listed on the page (fortunately a female ) so that's who John married.
    Prior to 1852 though it was slightly more difficult as you could have up to eight names (should be four male, four female) on the page and if there was more than one Mary/Betty/ Jane/etc then it's more difficult to work out who someone married.

    FreeBMD is only transcribing the GRO Index to 1983 and is still a work in progress though most of the registers before 1920 are complete.
    It's a well-known fact that the GRO Index is littered with errors (often caused when the original hand-written registers were transferred into typed copies) but even in more recent times they were still making errors. (According to the Index when auntie and uncle got married in the 1950s they did so in different registration districts!)
    FreeBMD is very good at picking up that type of error as well as errors made by the transcribers when inputting districts and volume numbers.
    Still with John Wigginton, scroll down to 1931 June quarter and you will see the district name in italics.
    Click on the 'specs' symbol at the side, and you are told that 756 for a page number doesn't 'fit' that quarter and district. If you click on the link to view the original page you will see that the transcription is correct. 7b is the correct volume number for Nottingham in that year, so the error is in the page number entered by the GRO. Sometimes it's a transcriber error e.g. they could have typed Northampton as a district name, then 7b, which again would have triggered the district name appearing in italics on FreeBMD.

    Pam

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    Howard may also like to read the GRO family history FAQ

    https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/ce...FamilyHistory1

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    Thank you for your prompt reply, I'd been searching the Ancestry website and looking at census records which seem straight forward enough but the birth,marriage and death index are only jpegs, so are not click-able but I imagine the answer still applies that the vol & page numbers are to identify the relevant certificate, thanks again.
    H.

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    1. Don't try to cobble together a family tree by looking at census records. It will end in tears. You need to base it firmly on birth, marriage and death data which practically always means obtaining certificates until early in the 19th century.

    2. Do not order a birth, marriage or death certificate via Ancestry. Use the General Register Office.

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    Thanks Peter, this is the route I'm taking and you may have answered a question I was going to ask, which is, is there any other way of establishing the parents of a given person without buying a birth certificate each time, my grandmothers brother died about 1907 at the age of 2 years 10 months which was right between censuses, I've found a death record that appears to match my grandmothers brother but I'm not sure that, that will help me link them to my family, maybe I just need to keep digging for a birth register entry.
    H.

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