Genealogy Chat

Could someone please explain. My family all originate from Scotland. I have only ever used Scotlands people to do my research. I would like to know why people buy certificates as I only ever use the registries that you get direct from Scotlands people. Is there more info on a certificate than on registry, as it seems a lot cheaper for the registry copy. Please make me understand the difference

I think that the information accessible on ScotlandsPeople is probably the same as on the certificates. However, the same doesn't apply for England and Wales!

Thankyou Andrew . What info do you get on Ancestry. As it seems to me to be a very expensive to have to order all these certificates, when I get the same info much cheaper.

Ancestry's main non-free feature is being able to search censuses from 1851 onwards for England and Wales, incl. being able to see images of the returns. They also have the GRO database for births, deaths, and marriages registered in England and Wales from 1984 to (I think) 2002. A recent additional feature, for which you don't (at the moment) have to pay for, is being able to look through the GRO index pages for births, deaths, and marriages registered in England and Wales before 1984. They do have some other things such as Pallott's, but I couldn't comment on those as I've never used them. I'd imagine that if you only have family in Scotland to research, Ancestry would be virtually worthless. If you find that there's the odd relative who strays south of the border, though, it might be worth using an Ancestry pay-per-view subscription, or even paying for one month's access, rather than forking out for their annual subscription. There is no way to obtain full details of births, deaths, and marriages, in England and Wales without obtaining the relevant certificates. However, registrations in more recent decades have slightly fuller information that can be of use; for example, from the late 1960s onwards the indexes for death registrations state the date of birth of the deceased.

Yes, I noticed that, too. I was thinking how wonderful it would be to have all my ancestors being Scottish LOL. Would make like a lot easier. The records seem much more thorough. On our indexes here all you get are the person's name, the year, the vol and page numbers and the area of the event (sometimes an age for deaths). Not like the Scottish indexes. I was looking for some Scottish births recently (I have a couple of Scottish lines in my tree) and was amazed that the entries actually told you when the parent's married and where, what their occupations were etc and all of this on a BIRTH entry - wonderful!! Must save you an awful lot of money, not having to fork out £7 each time for certificates. Leah

Ancestry only has the indexes to the certs. It IS very expensive ordering certs and they don't have as much information on them as Scottish ones, but if its all you have to trace your family its better than nothing. Ancestry's chief strength is the census info, but Pallot's marriage index can be useful as it covers marriages in some parishes whose original registers have been destroyed and pre-civil registration is often the only record that a marriage has taken place. nell

Thankyou everyone I now understand why everyone goes on about certificates on here. I suppose I should count my self lucky that my relatives are all Scottish as it is only 1pound (sorry pound key not working) to view and print each registry, and it has all the info you could possibly need. I suppose a down side is that there does seem to be more to research on ancestry. I will now tell my husband that his credit card does not take such bashing, as I am Scottish.

I believe that the authorities in England and Wales are working on getting the law changed here so that you can get an online copy of a certificate for family history purposes. At the moment the law only allows them to supply a certified copy, which is why it costs so much. Kate.

Gillian - could it be a pre-1855 birth? Civil Registration only started in 1855 in Scotland, so births before then would be from the 'Old Parochial Registers' and they are not available to view online yet. Post-1855 birth certs should be available to view, unless there was some problem with a particular one. Kate.

Hi Gillian, You can view and print all births between 1855 and 1905. Births before 1855 are not yet available to view online but will be this year. Although you can search for them and you get back dates and parents names but know copies.