Genealogy Chat

If you want to look at census records you should get a sub to ancestry which would give you the census from 1861-1901 (and hopefully 1851 in a while!!). It is well worth the sub. You also get access to freebmd info (which is not complete) and other bits such as Pallots Marriages. I think its probably me, but I have a dreadful time finding peoples births, marriages and deaths on 1837online. The familyrelatives site (another pay to view) is really so much easier to look through if the event is 1866-1920 as you just enter name, area and a time scale and get every match up.

I would add that when you are looking for a b m or d entry you have to be very careful subject to the name that you are looking for. Obviously, Smith, Brown, White etc., may have pages and pages indexed in which case you have to take care as to the Registration District which may guide you but in the final analysis the application for a certificate does allow you to give, apart from the details as shown by others, a checking point - so if you seee several Smiths in your District in one quarter hopefully only one will have a father with a name that you use as check-point, or mother, or job ....... As for censuses, these are generally used when you know the name of a child and then wish to see his/her parents and siblings. Knowing the parents will take you on one step further back so if that 'child' is 21 in 1901 census, the chances are you can trace him and his parents when he is age 1 in the 1881 census. Bear in mind that the information on the censuses is given by the householder and if YOU completed a census for in 2001 and it asked where born you may have put London instead of defining the part of London, so you have to take some precautions.

If you're looking for certificate info, I'd suggest you have a look at FreeBMD/ Ancestry(the free bit) first. That will give you an idea of what you're after: essentially the name, year, quarter (i.e. March, June, Sept, Dec), district (e.g. Leeds, Alton, Plymouth) and the reference (that bit you quoted). If you're lucky enough over counties, it's also worth looking at the local BMD sites. http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/ has a whole list of them - along with other useful links. Christine

Margaret You are confusing two different types of record. Censuses are produced every 10 years and give info about who was in a household on a specific night. You can find families together, with their ages, place of birth, occupations and relationships to eachother. At present 1837online has the 1861 census for some counties, and is planning to have all of England on it this year. 1837online is mainly useful for births, marriages and deaths indexes. What you get to see is an image of the original GRO[General Register Office] indexes. The GRO indexes are arranged by the year and quarter in which the event was registered, so if someone was born in Dec 1866 they might actually be registered in the March quareter of 1867. Marriages are registered on the day they occur, so they should always be in the right quarter. Births can be registered up to 6 weeks after the event. Deaths are generally registered within a few days of the death. The indexes are in alphabetical order within each quarter. If you want to order a cert from the GRO you will need the year, quarter, event, registration district, volume and page number to order a cert. nell

Is there anyone out there who would be kind enough to take me step by step on how to access census records on the 1837 site. (right from signing in, yes I'm totally thick in this) I've only limited time on this site and I have already wasted some units by playing around trying to find things. Also am I gaining anything by going into the reg. index and writing refs down (ie 9c 200) hopefully this sort of ref needs to be quoted when asking for a certificate, is this right? and is there a way to find which quarter your relation was born in before you enter the index so you don't have to waste units checking the full year. Will somebody please give a guiding hand to someone who hasn't a clue how to access this site to gain the important information on it. Thanks very much! Maggie