Places to Search
Civil Registration
England and Wales, Civil Registration Index: 1837-1900
Since the original birth, marriage and death registers are not open to the public, getting access to the information on one of these certificates is done by first searching the national birth, marriage and death indexes, that have been created by the GRO for this purpose. The indexes for the three events are each divided into quarterly volumes, with the names for each quarter listed alphabetically. Once an entry in one of the indexes is found, you are then able to use that information to order of certified copy of a death, marriage or birth certificate from the GRO/ONS. The other information that can be obtained from the index include: year, record type, quarter (referred to by the last month of the quarter: March, June, September, and December), district (each county in England and Wales was divided up into registration districts), volume, and page number.
Almost 30 million names have already been indexed by FreeBMD, between the years of 1837 and 1900, and more names continue to be added everyday. Ancestry will add to this database as more names are provided by FreeBMD. It is estimated that about 20% of the names between 1837 and 1900 have been indexed. Because of the nature of the index you will note that not all of the fields have been indexed all of the time. Until 1866, most of the indexes were handwritten, making the task of conversion sometimes difficult. Two additional fields have been added to the database by FreeBMD, namely county and contributor. Contributor refers to the volunteer that converted the name. FreeBMD has assigned the various districts to a their specific county.
British Births, Marriages, and Deaths Database Project
At present, there is a massive worldwide project underway that is transcribing British births, marriages and deaths and uploading the results onto a free, searchable Web site.
Several hundred transcribers are currently working worldwide, and all additional volunteers will be greatly appreciated. All that is required is access to a PC with a modem; anyone who also has a fiche reader will be doubly welcome. Records are at present being submitted at the rate of 38,000 per day on average, with close to 7 million completed out of a total of 150 million. Anyone with even an hour per week to spare will make all the difference to the completion date of the project.
For more details, visit the Web site.
British Newspaper Library Online Catalog
The British Newspaper Library at Colindale now has an online catalog that is available to everyone on the World Wide Web. You can find details of the newspapers that have been published and that are held by the Newspaper Library. Note that this is a catalog, not the actual articles. You can search by title, place, or date. The search will display a page listing all articles that match your criteria. You can then click on the articles referenced to view the catalog reference numbers and dates for each title. A notes section gives further details, such as whether or not the article is available on microfilm.
Visit the British Newspaper Library Catalog online.
Additional Information
Civil Registration System
by Phil Westwood
The obvious starting point to researching your Family History is to ask "has it been done before?" Assuming that you have asked all known relatives, the next stage is to look further and possibly discover distant cousins in the process.
The British CDs; What Have We Here?
by Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA
Ancestry has released twenty-six CDs with general headings of English, Scottish or Irish Parish Registers and sub-headings according to region or county. Twenty-one disks bear English place names, four relate to Scotland, and there is one containing Irish data. Among the English disks, there are three with Shropshire headings, a western county on the Welsh border. Some data from Wales or relating to Welsh people is included, and there is a small amount of very early Flintshire data on one of the Lancashire CDs. They are listed as 'parish registers' but this is really not an accurate description for there is much more than parish registers included on the CDs, and some contain predominantly other material.
British Isles Vital Records Index on CD-ROM – Second Edition
by Dick Eastman
Late in 1998, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) released a set of five CD-ROM data disks, called the "British Isles Vital Records Index." The set also included a sixth disk containing the necessary software. These disks contain nearly five million names from parish registers, civil registrations, and other record collections in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The records on the index span more than three centuries, from 1538 to 1888. The CD set sold for $15 (U.S. funds). In the three-plus years since the release, this set of valuable genealogy records has become a "best seller" for the Family History Department of the Mormon Church.
British Resources for Computer Genealogy
by Alan E. Mann, AG
Genealogical articles focusing on computer tools are often limited to United States resources. This article will focus on aids for English genealogy on the computer. Before you think I'm going to give you an exhaustive list, however, let me tell you that it's impossible to make a complete list of computer resources for English research. It would take at least a year to compile and it would be out of date before it was completed. Instead, let's take a look at a small sampling of computer resources to encourage you to look and find resources that will help with your specific research needs.