Best English B,D,M. Site

[Quinco]

Hi All, I am looking for the best English site to download B,D,M. Certs from. Its a first for me as a Scotsman to look for Kin south of the border.Thanks

[BumbleB]

At the moment it might depend on which counties you are interested in.  FindMyPast have some of them, Ancestry have others, and I'm sure that there are other subscription sites covering other areas of England and Wales.

Also - you will not see birth or death certificates, only baptisms and burials.  Marriage entries are from the parish registers, but the bonus is that they have original signatures.

[Quinco]

Thanks BumbleB, Never thought to give ancesty a try  Lol

[nanny jan]

If you draw blanks with your search then FreeBMD gives the registration details (from 1837) to use to order a certificate (cost £9.25) from GRO.

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/


Nanny Jan

[KGarrad]

You can't download certificates for Births, Marriages or Deaths in England or Wales!

They have to be ordered from the GRO at £9.25 each.

FreeBDM.org.uk FreeBMD.org.uk is the best place to start, as that is a (volunteer-led) transcription of the GRO Indexes.

Pre 1st July 1837, you will need Parish Registers.
I usually look at County pages in GenUKI, and then each particular own.


Apologies, BDM is the antipodean way!!
I must have been thinking in Strine?!

[Lostris]

FreeBDM.org.uk is the best place to start

I wouldnt start from there   

[Galium]

Unfortunately English and Welsh BMD certificates are not available anywhere for downloading.
You can use the indexes on Ancestry or findmypast to locate the ones you are interested in and then order copies from the GRO: http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

(Never order through Ancestry, who will charge you £22.50 for a cert that costs £9.25 from the GRO)

There are also free indexes at: http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
but they are not yet complete.

The exception to certificates being unavailable online is that both Ancestry and findmypast have some parish register images, which include marriage entries. Post 1837, when civil registration began, these show details identical to those on a certificate from the GRO.   However, the ones available at present are mostly CofE marriages.   So if the marriage took place in a church of another denomination, or at the register office, you would still need to order the certificate.


                                                                                     

[Quinco]

Thanks for the info everyone great help. Cheers Kenny.

[StanleysChesterton]

As has been said, you can't get the certificates.  Each has to be ordered, individually, at a cost of £9.25 - so you really need to be double/treble SURE you've got the right one before ordering it.

Every county/parish/town/place has different and differing coverage.  You really need to "get to know a specific parish inside out" if it turns out your people settled in one spot.... but, as a rule of thumb I'd check:

► freebmd.org.uk - can I find any evidence they lived/married/died?  All you get there is the quarter in which an event occurred (1837 to about late 1970s).
► freereg.co.uk - parish record transcriptions, where you might be lucky enough to get some "extra notes" made by the Vicar including father's names, occupations, age, where the bride/groom came from - but it's hit/miss which parishes have been transcribed and how good the Vicar was at filling in all that juicy extra info.
► findmypast.co.uk has the best English parish coverage - they're now working with local Family History Societies by providing the FHS transcriptions, but they're not all there and/or not all there YET. 
► Ancestry.co.uk has its uses... you can get a clue where you could look next with a free membership and just seeing what searches throw up.
► www.gov.uk/search-will-probate has wills/probate indexes searchable online, although a bit tiresome (unless you're clicking through from an ancestry/similar search result) they can yield an address or a next of kin/wife's name.

Beyond that, each county has an archives depts - and some counties have made available their BMD indexes online, providing more complete coverage than freeBMD, but no extra information usually.  Some archives have an online searchable catalogue that can also yield the occasional snippet that fills in a gap or gives you a clue.

There are some OPC projects; volunteers in a few counties that have transcribed anything they could find.  e.g. Lancashire, Cornwall, Devon ....and a few others.

It's really hit and miss and, for each person, you really need to try all of the above sources to try to piece together enough information/evidence that a person existed, where, when and what you want to find out next.