Author Topic: Asking a Registrar a question  (Read 2622 times)

Offline lizdb

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 25,307
    • View Profile
Re: Asking a Registrar a question
« Reply #9 on: Thursday 12 October 17 18:20 BST (UK) »
I'm with Mazi on this one.

You know it is the correct cert. So surely you have to buy it to find out what info it has on it?

If it has a fathers name then you have gained that info. If it doesn't, then you have found out that the person was illegitimate.   
Edmonds/Edmunds - mainly Sussex
DeBoo - London
Green - Suffolk
Parker - Sussex
Kemp - Essex
Farrington - Essex
Boniface - West Sussex

census information is Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Offline Forfarian

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 14,972
  • http://www.rootschat.com/links/01ruz/
    • View Profile
Re: Asking a Registrar a question
« Reply #10 on: Thursday 12 October 17 18:35 BST (UK) »
I'm with Mazi on this one.

You know it is the correct cert. So surely you have to buy it to find out what info it has on it?

If it has a fathers name then you have gained that info. If it doesn't, then you have found out that the person was illegitimate.

Ah, but I already know he was illegitimate. I don't need his marriage certificate to tell me that, or to tell me his father's surname, because he was always known by that surname. What I don't know is his father's given name and occupation. So if it doesn't have his father's name I would have spent £9.25 for nothing at all.

My question to this forum was, "Is this 'ask-a-question' a right, or a privilege at the discretion of the Registrar, and if it is a right can anyone point me to chapter and verse so that I can quote them out to this Registrar?"

No-one has actually answered that, so I have to assume that it depends on the whim of the Registrar. 

One Registrar I asked came back with a very cautiously worded reply that said, "The information on the certificate does not match the information you have supplied",  which was enough to tell me that it would be worth buying the certificate (and it was - the parents were in hiding under an assumed name!). Another confirmed that the bride's father's name matched what I had asked if it was, so I didn't need that one.
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.

Offline Guy Etchells

  • Deceased † Rest In Peace
  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • ********
  • Posts: 4,632
    • View Profile
Re: Asking a Registrar a question
« Reply #11 on: Thursday 12 October 17 19:26 BST (UK) »
I'm with Mazi on this one.

You know it is the correct cert. So surely you have to buy it to find out what info it has on it?

If it has a fathers name then you have gained that info. If it doesn't, then you have found out that the person was illegitimate.

Ah, but I already know he was illegitimate. I don't need his marriage certificate to tell me that, or to tell me his father's surname, because he was always known by that surname. What I don't know is his father's given name and occupation. So if it doesn't have his father's name I would have spent £9.25 for nothing at all.

My question to this forum was, "Is this 'ask-a-question' a right, or a privilege at the discretion of the Registrar, and if it is a right can anyone point me to chapter and verse so that I can quote them out to this Registrar?"

No-one has actually answered that, so I have to assume that it depends on the whim of the Registrar. 

One Registrar I asked came back with a very cautiously worded reply that said, "The information on the certificate does not match the information you have supplied",  which was enough to tell me that it would be worth buying the certificate (and it was - the parents were in hiding under an assumed name!). Another confirmed that the bride's father's name matched what I had asked if it was, so I didn't need that one.

You can ask a Registrar anything you like but he/she is under no obligation to answer.

Many Registrar's are helpful some are extremely helpful and some are not at all helpful, just like the rest of society.
Much depends on the way you approach them and your attitude with them.

Cheers
Guy
http://anguline.co.uk/Framland/index.htm   The site that gives you facts not promises!
http://burial-inscriptions.co.uk Tombstones & Monumental Inscriptions.

As we have gained from the past, we owe the future a debt, which we pay by sharing today.

Offline Forfarian

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 14,972
  • http://www.rootschat.com/links/01ruz/
    • View Profile
Re: Asking a Registrar a question
« Reply #12 on: Thursday 12 October 17 19:41 BST (UK) »
You can ask a Registrar anything you like but he/she is under no obligation to answer.
Thank you.

Quote
Much depends on the way you approach them and your attitude with them.
Indeed. Which is why I always try to be polite when contacting them.
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.


Offline davidft

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 4,209
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Asking a Registrar a question
« Reply #13 on: Thursday 12 October 17 21:01 BST (UK) »
I am a bit puzzled by you wanting to ask the registrar to give details of the grooms father in law's name. Even if the registrar told you the name you may be no further forward as the name on the certificate could be wrong. To give you an example on the marriage certificate of one of my ancestors "James Smith" (fictional name) his father is also down as James Smith. Fortunately I had enough other information to know the father was Thomas Smith and what was written on the marriage certificate was a mistake, but then there were so many mistakes on that particular certificate that one more wasn't going to unduly worry me.

There again on the rare occasion when I have included qualifying information when requesting a certificate it has back fired on me. when I requested a death certificate I put the age as it appeared in the burial register which unfortunately was several years different to what was on the certificate so my initial request was turned down. (When I reapplied leaving the age off it turned out it was the certificate I wanted and there was a difference in the ages in the burial register and the death certificate)
James Stott c1775-1850. James was born in Yorkshire but where? He was a stonemason and married Elizabeth Archer (nee Nicholson) in 1794 at Ripon. They lived thereafter in Masham. If anyone has any suggestions or leads as to his birthplace I would be interested to know. I have searched for it for years without success. Thank you.

Offline Forfarian

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 14,972
  • http://www.rootschat.com/links/01ruz/
    • View Profile
Re: Asking a Registrar a question
« Reply #14 on: Thursday 12 October 17 21:38 BST (UK) »
I am a bit puzzled by you wanting to ask the registrar to give details of the grooms father in law's name. Even if the registrar told you the name you may be no further forward as the name on the certificate could be wrong.
Oh yes, I realise that.

But that applies to just about every certificate. The information is only as good as the person who supplies it, and there can even be errors on birth certificates when a mother registers the birth. Something to go on would be better than nothing, and the groom could have got it right.

I don't expect the Registrar to tell me the actual name. I only asked him to tell me if there is a groom's father's name on the certificate, and if he had told me that there is I would have bought a copy in the orthodox way. If there isn't, or if he doesn't tell me there is, I won't buy it.
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.

Offline ribbo39

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 3,320
    • View Profile
Re: Asking a Registrar a question
« Reply #15 on: Friday 13 October 17 06:29 BST (UK) »
Hi,
Another possibility is to ask for a lookup of a baptism entry to see if a father's name is listed. If, as you say, he is illegitimate, then I would think the father's name is missing.

Having said that, I have found several bapt. entries, in my tree,  which list the son,  mother and father's name "or reputed to be the son of.." even to the point where a child was bapt. under the mother's name and the father and mother married a few weeks later.

As for a marriage certificate, I have a g/grandmother who says she was 17,  but actually was 15years & 9 mths when she married and stated her father was "Alfred ....."  but in reality her father was  "Elijah......" and still alive and didn't die till some 16 years later.

The fact she gave birth a few months later didn't come into it, or did it?

An interesting story.

Alan
Browse, Peggs, Revans/Revance/Ribbans, Spall,   in Suffolk/Norfolk
Belcher, Elderfield, Froude, Saunders,  Stimson, Tame,   in Berks
Artis, Gray in Norfolk

Offline rosie99

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 41,948
  • ALFIE 2009 - 2021 (Rosbercon Sky's the Limit)
    • View Profile
Re: Asking a Registrar a question
« Reply #16 on: Friday 13 October 17 08:00 BST (UK) »
I would think that it is not obligatory for a registrar or their staff to supply the information before you order a certificate.  Have you tried ordering it with the payment and specifying that you only want it if a fathers name is given.
Census information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Offline AntonyMMM

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 1,259
  • Researcher (retired) and former Deputy Registrar
    • View Profile
Re: Asking a Registrar a question
« Reply #17 on: Friday 13 October 17 08:20 BST (UK) »
Producing certificates from old registers is a tiny fraction of the work in a registration office - it isn't something most registrars would have any involvement with at all. In many offices a designated member of the reception staff will deal with these enquiries and as such, as Guy says, much depends on how much time they have and how helpful they want to be.

In the office I worked in the "certificate desk" staff were always happy to be as helpful as possible, and would often go way beyond what was required to try and help people who sometimes made quite vague requests, but there is no rule about having a legal right to be allowed to ask questions.

An added complication is that some old registers may not be held on site, or may even have been passed on to local archives, so retrieving the register to check the entry is most of the work involved.