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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: Brilliard on Wednesday 12 July 17 14:49 BST (UK)

Title: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: Brilliard on Wednesday 12 July 17 14:49 BST (UK)
Where you have several people with the same name and location what is the best and cheapest way to check matching details without buying all the certificates.Will the officials check specifics and only post you certificates where a match occurs.
Title: Re: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: lizdb on Wednesday 12 July 17 15:34 BST (UK)
Do you mean in the gro marriage index where there are 4 names on a page, or 8 on earlier records?
And you are trying to work out who married who?

Some tips -
1) Look in censuses for both couples - if , say, two have unusual names and you can find them married to each other, then you can assume that the other two married each other.
2) Look for births of children in following years, along with mother maiden name. Again only works if names are not too common. But in conjunction with census findings can be confirmed reasonably reliably.
3) Obviously the best way (apart from buying certs) is to look at Parish records if you can
4) Try www.familysearch. org to see if any of the marriages are on there.
5) Ask on Rootschat, to see if any one here has access to the relevant Parish Records (remember you do need the parish, not just the registration district from the gro index, so you may need to do a bit of digging in censuses etc first)


Title: Re: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: Ruskie on Wednesday 12 July 17 15:45 BST (UK)
Do you mean for example:

Births - John Smith born 1885 in Birmingham

Marriages - John Smith married Mary surname unknown about 1908 in Birmingham

In both of these examples there are likely to be dozens of John Smith births and marriages.

When ordering certificates from the GRO you can specify certain criteria, if known.

eg. If you know that John Smith b 1885 had a father named Edward, you can say that you only want the certificate if the father is Edward.

To find the correct marriage certificate you can look at the births of the children to find out Mary's maiden name which should help you find the correct marriage, as her surname will be on the index too.

I'm not sure if that answers your question, or not?  :-\
 :)
Title: Re: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: lizdb on Wednesday 12 July 17 16:12 BST (UK)
Ruskie - you may well have interperated the question correctly, and I may have well done so wrongly!
I was thinking about when there are 4 names for a marriage in the gro index with the same reference (E.g Joe Bloggs, Mary Smith, Fred Blenkinsop-Wetherall and Lavinia Jones. And you are trying to work out who married who. It may actually be Joe Bloggs you are interested in, but if you look for the other groom in the next census, Fred, and find a wife called Lavinia Blenkinsop-Wetherall, you can be fairly certain that your Joe Bloggs married Mary Smith) 

But, re-reading it, I think you may be right and it is a far more general query.
Title: Re: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: Brilliard on Wednesday 12 July 17 16:39 BST (UK)
I think Ruskie has answered what I wanted i.e when I find a marriage index over a period of say 5 years and I have 20 entries under the same name I need to know which one has the right occupation,age and fathers name and his occupation.So I gather that when ordering from the GRO I can ask for each of the 20 entries to be checked against these details.
.
Title: Re: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: lizdb on Wednesday 12 July 17 16:45 BST (UK)
No - you can only order one certificate at a time, and you can ask for that to be checked eg only send it if father is called Edward.
They wont check 20 entries, you would have to apply for all twenty certs with that same proviso!
Title: Re: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: Brilliard on Wednesday 12 July 17 17:07 BST (UK)
OK, that seems a long and expensive process,do they charge for certs which do not match the checking criteria.
Title: Re: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: lizdb on Wednesday 12 July 17 17:23 BST (UK)
To be honest, Brilliard, I cant remember, we will have to wait for Ruskie or someone else who knows to reply. I know it isn't the full amount, but whether you get it all refunded or not, I wouldn't know.

I have never done that, I have always thought it to be a false economy. Say, for example, you are looking at Fred Bloggs, who appears on a census with father, John. You find a marriage for Fred Bloggs and stipulate you only want it if father is listed as John. You don't get it, you just get the refund (full or part, whichever is correct!). In my view that hasn't helped much, as you don't know what the father WAS listed as, nor do you know anything else from that cert!   If that looked like the right marriage for Fred, then I would prefer to get the cert. You may find, in my example, that everything matches - Fred is of right age, right occupation, address given is that of where you had him in last census, witnesses are the names of known siblings, etc etc , just that the father is listed as Henry, not John. So they didn't send it! But, yes it was the correct marriage, just that father has a different name, further investigation may reveal that Dad was actually Henry John and liked to alternate between them, or that father was John, but he died and step dad was called Henry, and the marriage cert ended up with a combination of first name and surname, I have seen that.

Best to research from as many angles as possible before sending for a cert, and then, in my view, Usually best to not stipulate any checks , but I know others differ in that view.

If you are stuck with someone in particular - before sending for any certs why not put the details on here and see if any of us can scratch around and find out any more info to narrow down which marriage/birth it might be?
Title: Re: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: msr on Wednesday 12 July 17 17:27 BST (UK)
Hi Brilliard, if you don't mention the index reference number, just names and as much information as you know, they will perform a search, and refund your money if they can't find one that matches.   It is usual to pay up front though.
Title: Re: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: jim1 on Wednesday 12 July 17 18:27 BST (UK)
I think there are better ways of doing this before requesting multiple searches from the GRO.
If they appear on the census look at the children's ages & birthplaces. Check these against the GRO indexes which gives mother's maiden name & as you will have her first name look for a marriage where both names appear on the same page.
Title: Re: Marriage and birth certificates
Post by: Ruskie on Thursday 13 July 17 15:11 BST (UK)
If you tell us exactly what certificates you are seeking, and give us names, dates, and any additional information we can have a try at narrowing down the most likely certificates if you like. :)

If you have the people on any censuses it would be useful if you could post those details too.

 :)

Added: Like Lizdb, it's been a while since I ordered any certificates from the GRO, but a few years ago they did make some changes (and now of course the mother's maiden name has been added to the index of births which helps enormously). If my memory serves me correctly I think you can request a search of a range of years, so +/- x amount of years. Being a cynic I am not sure how thoroughly some searches are conducted though.  ;)

You can also go down the local record office route - I have not done this, but a lot of people find that the staff at some ROs give a more personal service. Some have said that if you ring them and request a particular certificate for a particular date and specify parent's names for example, they will tell you if that is correct or not. Note that you do not use the GRO reference numbers for these certificates but you need to locate them via this site I think: http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/