Family History - Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates
Using birth, marriage and death certificates to help you trace your family history.
A birth certificate is particularly useful in family history, as it usually gives you the names of the child's parents (including the mother's maiden name), as well as the child's date and place of birth.
Marriage certificates include the names of the bride and groom, their ages, addresses and the names of their fathers. Be aware that "of full age" is often given on the certificate, which just means that the person was aged over 21.
Death certificates include the name and age of the deceased person (date of birth is given instead of age on certificates registered after 1969).
Obtaining copies of certificates
If you know where and when someone was born, married or died, you can contact the local register office for the area concerned and purchase a copy of the certificate.
If you want to find a birth, marriage or death certificate for someone and you don't have enough information to know which register office to contact or what date to search for, then you need to check the General Register Office (GRO) indexes to births, marriages and deaths.
The registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales began on 1st July 1837 (in Scotland records began in 1855 and in Ireland in 1864, except for non-Catholic marriages which were registered in Ireland from 1845).
Prior to the introduction of civil registration, there was no formal system of registering births, marriages and deaths. The only records available before this date are church registers of baptism, marriage and burial.
General Register Office indexes
The General Register Office (GRO) collects information from all register offices in England & Wales and compiles indexes to birth, marriage and death certificates. These are available free of charge on microfiche at Solihull Heritage & Local Studies Service for 1937-2003 and are also available free of charge on the FreeBMD website (1837 to 1950) or from the Ancestry website (1837-2005) or the Find My Past website (1837-2006), which you can access free of charge from computers in any Solihull library. We have some Ancestry tips to help you get better search results from the site.
Tips for searching
Bear in mind that, although the registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced on 1st July 1837, it wasn't until 1875 that it became properly compulsory. It's estimated that between 5% and 10% of births weren't registered during this period. If this is the case for one of your ancestors, then you may have to check baptism records instead. It can also be useful to search for the birth of a younger sibling, as this may have been registered when the births of the older children were not.
When searching, always check for alternative spellings, particularly before 1900, as it wasn't until the early 20th century that spelling really settled down.
Overseas indexes
If you can't find someone on the indexes, consider whether they might have been born elsewhere. As already mentioned, Scotland & Ireland have separate systems from that of England & Wales. It may also be worth considering whether the person could have been born, married or died overseas.
If a British national was born, married or died overseas, then the responsibility was to register under the system in place in the country concerned. In addition, it was also possible to register the event with the appropriate British Consul or High Commission. This has never been compulsory.
The General Register Office (GRO) produces overseas indexes, which cover:
- Births, marriages and deaths registered by the British Forces and the British Consul or High Commission from 1849.
- Deaths that occurred in the Boer War (1899-1902) and the First and Second World Wars.
- British Army Regimental records of births, baptisms and marriages dating back to 1761.
- Marine Births and Deaths, from 1837, which took place on British-registered vessels at sea.
- Aircraft Births and Deaths, from 1948, which took place on British-registered aircraft.
- From 1966-1994, the indexes are just grouped together as Births Abroad, Marriages Abroad and Deaths Abroad.
The indexes are available free of charge on microfiche at Solihull Heritage & Local Studies Service or via the Find My Past website (available free of charge from computers at Solihull Libraries).