Civil Registration in England and Wales

CIVIL REGISTRATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES

The requirement to register a birth, marriage or death in England and Wales came into effect on 1 July 1837. The indexes of all registrations since that date form part of the General Register Office (GRO) and for many years were held at St Catherine's House on the corner of Kingsway in London - hence the reason why these records are still affectionately known as the 'St Catherine's Records'. Between 1997 and 2008 they were held at the Family Records Centre in Islington following which they were transferred to The National Archives at Kew.

Every birth, adoption, marriage, civil partnership or death registered in England or Wales has a General Register Office (GRO) index reference number. It usually consists of the year, volume number, page number and district in which the event was registered. When ordering a birth, adoption, marriage, civil partnership or death certificate, quoting the certificate index reference reduces the time it takes to find the record. This means you will receive your certificate sooner.

From 1837 to 1984 the index information for each year is divided into quarters. The quarters are split as follows:

March quarter – events registered in January, February and March

June quarter – April, May and June

September quarter – July, August and September

December quarter – October, November and December

Bear in mind that the quarter in which an event took place was not necessarily the quarter in which it was registered - always check at least the following quarter.

The earliest index is for September quarter 1837. After 1984 the indexes are organised by year only.

The indexes are arranged in year order, and in each quarter or year the entries are listed alphabetically by surname, and then by forename.To search marriage records, you can use either the surname of the married man or maiden surname of the married woman. Adoptions records start from 1927, and are listed alphabetically by surname and then by forename. Civil partnership records start from December 2005 and are listed by surname, together with the surname of partner, year of formation, registration authority and registration entry number.

You can view GRO indexes online through several specialist organisations and websites:

Obtaining Certificates Online

You can order births (full certificate only), marriage or death certificates online from 1837 onwards providing you have the General Register Office index reference. If you do not have the reference, you can order certificates for events from 1900 if you know the exact date of the event.

Obtaining Certificates by Telephone or Post

You can order birth, marriage and death certificates by telephone from the General Register Office or you can contact the local register office where the event took place.

Call +44 (0) 845 603 7788, Monday to Friday 8.00 am - 8.00 pm, or Saturday 9.00 am - 4.00 pm. The General Register Office accepts Visa, Visa Electron, Mastercard, Solo, Visa Debit or Maestro.

You can order birth, marriage and death certificates by post, but you need to ask for an application form first. To request the form you can email: certificate.services@ips.gsi.gov.uk You need to insert GQ in the subject line of your email to ensure a personal response to your query. Alternatively, you can phone: +44 (0)845 603 7788, Monday to Friday 8.00 am - 8.00 pm, or Saturday 9.00 am - 4.00 pm. State which form you need – birth, death, or marriage - and how many copies, and include your name and address. Send the completed form, with the correct payment by cheque, postal order or credit card, to General Register Office, PO Box 2, Southport, Merseyside, PR8 2JD.

Make cheques or postal orders payable to 'IPS' (Identity and Passport Service). Do not fax or photocopy your application.

Birth Certificates

During the early years of civil registration many births, particularly those of illegitimate children, were not registered; indeed, until 1875 when it became compulsory, there was no penalty for failure to do so. Parents were given 6 weeks in which to register the birth; after 6 weeks and up to 6 months the birth could be registered on payment of a fine. After 6 months, with very few exceptions, a birth could not be registered. Not surprisingly it was fairly common for parents arriving to register a child a few days beyond the 6 week deadline to adjust the birth date to come within the allowed 42 days in order to avoid paying the fine. Since 1875 the father of an illegitimate child can only be named on the birth certificate if he is present at the registration and gives his consent.

Birth registrations did not require the child being registered to have a first name. Entries for children who had not been named at the time of registration are found at the end of entries for the surname in question, listed under 'Male' or 'Female'. Inevitably, mistakes were made at the time of registration and the reversal of christian names, in particular, was common - a child whose name was intended to be Henry John may well have been registered as John Henry.

If the time of birth is given on a certificate, it frequently implies a multiple birth.

From the September quarter of 1911 the birth indexes also give the maiden name of the mother.

Marriage Certificates

After the December quarter of 1911 the Marriage Indexes give the maiden name of the bride alongside the surname of the groom and vice-versa. There are separate alphabetical entries for bride and groom, so assuming the bride's maiden name is known it can be cross checked (in the index of the same Quarter) to ensure that the volume and page references coincide.

Ages on marriage certificates are often unreliable. 21 and the expression "of full age" both mean that the person was 21 and upwards - if they were telling the truth! In theory, a marriage certificate should state if the father of the bride or groom was deceased but in practice this requirement was often ignored.

A widow will be listed in the index under her previous married name and not under her maiden name - but her maiden name will appear on the certificate. Marriages which took place in non-conformist chapels prior to 1898 had to be carried out in the presence of a (civil) Registrar. Such marriages will often be recorded in the Registrar's own register (also used to record marriages which took place in the Register Office) and not in the Register of the chapel concerned. They will appear in the St Catherine's indexes but will not be easily traced in a local Register Office.

Remember that a marriage register need only be deposited with the local Registrar when it is full - a church where few marriages take place may still be using a register commenced in 1837 and the local Register Office will have no copy of this book.

Death Certificates

From 1837 a death had to be registered within 8 days; in 1875 this was reduced to 5 days. From 1866 onwards, death indexes give the age of the deceased at death but too much reliance should not be placed on the age given on a death certificate as the only person who could probably be relied upon to know the true facts was not available to provide them! The accuracy of the age given depended on the person giving the information and, particularly in the early days when there was no birth certificate to verify the statement, it may be a number of years out. Many people deliberately lost several years from their age at some time in their lives and actually came to believe in their 'new' age.

Present at the death means what it says; In attendance means that the person registering the death was not actually present but attended at the Register Office to register it.

With very few exceptions, a death cannot be registered until a positive identification of the body has been made. This can cause considerable confusion to the family historian. If there is no body, a death cannot be registered. If the body is recovered (eg from a mining accident or shipwreck) several years later and is identified, the death is registered as at the date of recovery but the age given will be that which applied at the time of death.

Unless a body is legally identified, it cannot be registered under a specific name - hence entries in the indexes for, for example Old Joe aged about 65, for an itinerant worker with no known surname, and the pages of entries to be found at the end of each volume listing 'unknown' or 'unidentified' bodies with estimated ages. If you have 'lost' a death, particularly in the early days of civil registration, it would be worth checking these lists to see if you can spot a likely entry in the correct Registration District.

If an inquest was held, the death would have been registered in the quarter when the inquest was completed. This may be some time after the actual death, particularly if there was an adjournment, and the entry may be in a later quarter than you anticipate.