Civil registration

Civil registration of birth, marriages and deaths began in England and Wales from 1 July 1837, in Scotland from 1 January 1855, and in Ireland from 1 January 1864. The actual records of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales are held by the General Register Office (Office for National Statistics) - telephone (+44) 0845 603 7788; email: certificate.services@ons.gov.uk; website: http://www.gro.gov.uk/. You can order certificates by telephone, post or email if you have the references; year, quarter, registration district, volume and page number from the indexes.

Certificates of birth registered within the last 50 years require in addition to GRO references full details of the child's name, date and place of birth, father's full name and mother's full name, including maiden name. This is to provide protection against identity theft and fraud.

Scottish registration indexes for births from 1855 to 2006, marriages from 1855 to 1932 and deaths from 1855 to 2006 can be searched online at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ on a pay per view basis. For records of registration in Ireland and Northern Ireland (after 1922) there are no online indexes. The records are held in the General Register Offices in Dublin and Belfast.

Births, marriages and deaths since 1837

Registration began in England and Wales from 1837 but the onus to register births was on the district registrar not the parents. Some births were not registered at all in this period and you will need to look for baptismal records instead. Marriage records have always been complete, but some entries are missing from the indexes and most deaths have been recorded (though not always under the correct name and sometimes as unknown male/female). Death certificates have been required since 1837 for a legal burial to take place.

Registration indexes are becoming available on the Internet. http://www.findmypast.com/provides images of the original indexes to search for your references on a pay per view basis. A free, but as yet incomplete, index is being compiled covering 1837 to 1983, which can be accessed at http://www.freebmd.org.uk/.