Censuses, births/marriages/deaths etc etc

[JaneyCanuck]

And on Guy's point, a tip of the hat to him: over a decade ago, he had transcribed Long Clawson marriages and made them available on line, in a list form. When I was just starting out myself, that is how I discovered - I assume through the magic of google - who my greatx3 grandparents were.

That grx3 grandmother and her several siblings were the last to carry a surname now extinct in England (her two brothers died unmarried/childless) and they all appeared on Guy's list of marriages -- and my grx3 grandfather managed to marry two of them! Well, he didn't actually marry my grx3 grandmother, tsk -- him being one of the most respectable burghers in my otherwise ag lab-y / framework knitter-y tree ... it was illegal for a man to marry his deceased wife's sister at the time. They just pretended to be married. So Guy's list alerted me to that little fact, by showing both his and her previous marriages.

[Guy Etchells]

And on Guy's point, a tip of the hat to him: over a decade ago, he had transcribed Long Clawson marriages and made them available on line, in a list form. When I was just starting out myself, that is how I discovered - I assume through the magic of google - who my greatx3 grandparents were.
snip

Blushing now, just glad I could help in some way.
Cheers
Guy

[StevieSteve]

I think it's a missed opportunity  that you can't link everybody up, at least back to 1837.

If you were setting up a BMD registration system, I don't see why you wouldn't want to link the B, M and D of each individual. All it needed was a Unique ID...

[ScouseBoy]

I think it's a missed opportunity  that you can't link everybody up, at least back to 1837.

If you were setting up a BMD registration system, I don't see why you wouldn't want to link the B, M and D of each individual. All it needed was a Unique ID...

One word Privacy.

[KGarrad]

When Civil Registration started in England & Wales, way back in 1837, there were no computers, not even typewriters!

How would anyone ensure that a "uniqueID" issued in Penzance was different from a "uniqueID" issued in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, for example.

In days when people didn't even remember where or when they were born, hoe could it be managed to use these self-same "unique ID's" on their marriage registration?

And then, when they died, who was going to remember the "unique ID" - when they often got the age wrong anyway?

It was a human system, subject to all the vagaries of human memory.

[StevieSteve]

Bit defeatist, KG.

If you're issuing birth certs, it shouldn't be too difficult to add a unique reference number. Make it a rule for brides and grooms to present their birth certs at their wedding and at the registration of their subsequent children and you've got the beginnings of a workable system

[clairec666]

Can a computer algorithm work out who's related to who? Well, Ancestry hints have attempted this, and have hardly succeeded.

[KGarrad]

But you can't apply it retrospectively throughout the past 179 years?!

Those of us who have been doing genealogical research for some time have many, many cases where people just didn't remember basic facts about their lives.

People forget where they were born, even when they were born.
How would you expect the many illiterate people (especially in the early to mid 1800s) to remember an ID that means nothing to them?

You can't turn back history!

[ScouseBoy]

Bit defeatist, KG.

If you're issuing birth certs, it shouldn't be too difficult to add a unique reference number. Make it a rule for brides and grooms to present their birth certs at their wedding and at the registration of their subsequent children and you've got the beginnings of a workable system

    Because  at some date  in the last thirty years or so in England   they did come up with  the idea  of issuing   NHS numbers  at the same time as birth  registration, as we discussed recently.