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Inspect register of births?

Genealogy, Local, General
NomoneyNohoney
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Inspect register of births?

#511748

Postby NomoneyNohoney » July 5th, 2022, 7:25 am

Hi, I'd like to inspect a register of births that was recorded in Kingston on Thames. Is this publicly accessible, is it free and where is it held? ( I assume KoT). I don't want to buy a birth cert, I'd just like to inspect the register. Is this still possible nowadays and where do I get info, such as making an appointment, where it is held etc.

NomoneyNohoney
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511796

Postby NomoneyNohoney » July 5th, 2022, 11:06 am

Huh. Now I can answer my own question. Phoned the register dept., who say all you can do is pay £11.00 for a copy of each and every birth cert. that interests you. Physical inspection of records is not possible. That would make it an expensive proposition, so kills that avenue of exploration. Just fyi.

PhaseThree

Re: Inspect register of births?

#511802

Postby PhaseThree » July 5th, 2022, 11:15 am

I take it the information on the FreeBMD site is insufficient for your needs ?

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

XFool
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511806

Postby XFool » July 5th, 2022, 11:31 am

NomoneyNohoney wrote:Huh. Now I can answer my own question. Phoned the register dept., who say all you can do is pay £11.00 for a copy of each and every birth cert. that interests you. Physical inspection of records is not possible. That would make it an expensive proposition, so kills that avenue of exploration. Just fyi.

Ha, hah! "Physical inspection of records is not possible" - Strange but true, in the UK. The only people legally allowed to see the records themselves are officially appointed registrar personnel and then only in pursuance of their official work.

Not necessarily elsewhere. e.g. in the Republic of Ireland (where, since the UK administered Ireland in the past, you can get to see what the UK records - of the time - actually physically looked like) - NB. Not everyone in the past wrote in 'copperplate' !

Notwithstanding I can apply and obtain a valid copy of your UK records and you can apply and obtain a valid copy of my records etc. (£11 a copy) :P

What is NOT covered by this legal sanction is... The indexes to these same records. And, as has been mentioned above, the Free Births, Marriages and Deaths (FreeBMD) website is freely available via the web for searches of these indexes. You can even see the original image of the index page your say birth is listed on, along with many other babies in alphabetical order, etc. It really depends what you want to do and are after.

You could possibly ask Kingston on Thames whether they too have their local indexes (I have no idea about this) that you could physically peruse.

Dod101
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511837

Postby Dod101 » July 5th, 2022, 1:23 pm

XFool wrote:
NomoneyNohoney wrote:Huh. Now I can answer my own question. Phoned the register dept., who say all you can do is pay £11.00 for a copy of each and every birth cert. that interests you. Physical inspection of records is not possible. That would make it an expensive proposition, so kills that avenue of exploration. Just fyi.

Ha, hah! "Physical inspection of records is not possible" - Strange but true, in the UK. The only people legally allowed to see the records themselves are officially appointed registrar personnel and then only in pursuance of their official work.

Not necessarily elsewhere. e.g. in the Republic of Ireland (where, since the UK administered Ireland in the past, you can get to see what the UK records - of the time - actually physically looked like) - NB. Not everyone in the past wrote in 'copperplate' !

Notwithstanding I can apply and obtain a valid copy of your UK records and you can apply and obtain a valid copy of my records etc. (£11 a copy) :P

What is NOT covered by this legal sanction is... The indexes to these same records. And, as has been mentioned above, the Free Births, Marriages and Deaths (FreeBMD) website is freely available via the web for searches of these indexes. You can even see the original image of the index page your say birth is listed on, along with many other babies in alphabetical order, etc. It really depends what you want to do and are after.

You could possibly ask Kingston on Thames whether they too have their local indexes (I have no idea about this) that you could physically peruse.


And in Scotland you can get full digital images of the certificates for payment of a small fee for births from 1 January 1855 up until 31 December 1921. For births after then (I think it is up until then anyway) you need to pay for the full certificate if you want the details but you can actually see some details via the indexes, also available online.

Dod

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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511842

Postby XFool » July 5th, 2022, 1:43 pm

Dod101 wrote:
XFool wrote:
NomoneyNohoney wrote:Huh. Now I can answer my own question. Phoned the register dept., who say all you can do is pay £11.00 for a copy of each and every birth cert. that interests you. Physical inspection of records is not possible. That would make it an expensive proposition, so kills that avenue of exploration. Just fyi.

Ha, hah! "Physical inspection of records is not possible" - Strange but true, in the UK. The only people legally allowed to see the records themselves are officially appointed registrar personnel and then only in pursuance of their official work.

Notwithstanding I can apply and obtain a valid copy of your UK records and you can apply and obtain a valid copy of my records etc. (£11 a copy) :P

And in Scotland you can get full digital images of the certificates for payment of a small fee for births from 1 January 1855 up until 31 December 1921. For births after then (I think it is up until then anyway) you need to pay for the full certificate if you want the details but you can actually see some details via the indexes, also available online.

I thought you were going to say my: "Strange but true, in the UK." ought to be "Strange but true, in England & Wales."
But seemingly not.

It is also true you can get a cheaper (I think £7.50) PDF copy of a certificate by email, rather than an official certificate, from the UK General Register Office for any record you can provide them with the correct GRO Index - obtained via FreeBMD, usually.

pje16
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511875

Postby pje16 » July 5th, 2022, 3:19 pm

PhaseThree wrote:I take it the information on the FreeBMD site is insufficient for your needs ?

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Has anyone tried this
I tried to find myself
when I enter my DoB it says

You can only use "Death age/DoB" with a Deaths search. Please select "Deaths" for Type.

So why does the box say
"death age / DoB"
It's either useless or I am missing a trick

PhaseThree

Re: Inspect register of births?

#511878

Postby PhaseThree » July 5th, 2022, 3:33 pm

Dont over constrain the search.
Set a suitable date range (not Death or Dob) then name+surname and you should pop up

pje16
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511880

Postby pje16 » July 5th, 2022, 3:39 pm

thanks but
overconstrain..... by using Birth
Why do they have it if it doesn't work
I tried it without dates (don't want to put to much strain it now...)
and the first name match is 7 years after Iwas born
It IS hopeless
now wonder it is free
you couldn't charge for that !

PhaseThree

Re: Inspect register of births?

#511881

Postby PhaseThree » July 5th, 2022, 3:48 pm

I have no idea what you are doing wrong.
By entering my name and constrain the data to the month I was born I get a single exact match on my birth record.

.....It's also one of the most widely used genealogical databases around

Check the "Help" section for details of limitations, for instance

"The index only contains information about the Date of Birth (or Age at Death) for Death entries so you can only specify these for searches that only specify Deaths as the type of entry to be searched for."

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/search-help.shtml

pje16
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511884

Postby pje16 » July 5th, 2022, 3:57 pm

What happened to Jan
Image
Yes I tried Mar to the Dec (the following year)
It doesn't like me

edit Ok the help says MAR contains Jan Feb and Mar
that's intuitive...

staffordian
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511949

Postby staffordian » July 5th, 2022, 7:16 pm

pje16 wrote:
PhaseThree wrote:I take it the information on the FreeBMD site is insufficient for your needs ?

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Has anyone tried this
I tried to find myself
when I enter my DoB it says

You can only use "Death age/DoB" with a Deaths search. Please select "Deaths" for Type.

So why does the box say
"death age / DoB"
It's either useless or I am missing a trick

The text relating to that box is ambiguous.
It is only for deaths, as you have discovered, but allows either the year of birth or age at death to be entered in order to narrow down the potential hits. It must, of course, be used in addition to a surname and normally a first name.

staffordian
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511952

Postby staffordian » July 5th, 2022, 7:19 pm

pje16 wrote:What happened to Jan
Image
Yes I tried Mar to the Dec (the following year)
It doesn't like me

edit Ok the help says MAR contains Jan Feb and Mar
that's intuitive...

Data is indexed in quarters by the General Register Office, so Jan, Feb and March events come under March.

Even this is not entirely accurate as there is a period of grace in which to register events, so, for example, a birth in late December 1950 may appear in the December 1950 quarter or the March 1951 quarter.

pje16
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511972

Postby pje16 » July 5th, 2022, 8:01 pm

staffordian wrote:
pje16 wrote:
PhaseThree wrote:I take it the information on the FreeBMD site is insufficient for your needs ?

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Has anyone tried this
I tried to find myself
when I enter my DoB it says

You can only use "Death age/DoB" with a Deaths search. Please select "Deaths" for Type.

So why does the box say
"death age / DoB"
It's either useless or I am missing a trick

The text relating to that box is ambiguous.
It is only for deaths, as you have discovered, but allows either the year of birth or age at death to be entered in order to narrow down the potential hits. It must, of course, be used in addition to a surname and normally a first name.


I have tried multiple times
First name, First and second name, Surname
Various dates
it either come ups with
1) nothing
2) list several years after I was born
3) Lists that I should be on but am not
There is nothing weird about my name, place or date of birth
That website is appalling
I will not be wasting anymore time on it

XFool
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511974

Postby XFool » July 5th, 2022, 8:03 pm

pje16 wrote:
PhaseThree wrote:I take it the information on the FreeBMD site is insufficient for your needs ?

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Has anyone tried this
I tried to find myself
when I enter my DoB it says

You can only use "Death age/DoB" with a Deaths search. Please select "Deaths" for Type.

So why does the box say
"death age / DoB"
It's either useless or I am missing a trick

Ah! You are likely missing a trick, or two, or... (You only need that box for a search of a death - for birth you just search the relevant dates. But see below!)

The very first time I tried using FreeBMD to find myself in the index of Birth registrations, I had my original birth certificate open on my knees. I did succeed in finding myself - at the SEVENTH attempt! As you may imagine, by the fifth failure I started thinking: "What's this? Is there something I haven't been told? Am I who I think I am?"

Don't blame FreeBMD, which is excellent. The issues come from needing a clear understanding of what is going on. There are a whole series of small 'wrinkles' involved in the matter of, in particular, Birth registrations and the GRO. Which, for simplicity, I avoided mentioning in the above.

e.g. Given the assumed age of most TLF members - the GRO will have no online searchable index records for you! Hence you have to use FreeBMD (which the UK GRO will refer you on to, if you go looking there for online references to your birth)

You need to know your birthday... Obviously! I hear you say. But not quite for the reasons you may think. What you will be searching for is your birth registration, not your birth. Legally this must happen up to 42 days after your birth. So at least you know it is going to be after your birth, but the actual date is most likely unknown and indeed isn't even recorded in the index. :)

All that is needed is the quarter of the year you name appears in the appropriate (registration district) register index (along with your mother's maiden name as check). The quarters, for the GRO Index are... March, June, September and December. :? i.e. They are defined by the last month of the quarter, not the first.

So... say you were actually born on 22nd December 1955. Naturally you know you are a 1955 baby and search up to say the end of 1955. No joy? But that could be because - in terms of registration - you are a March 1956 baby! Registration rollover (Birth + up to 42 days) takes you into the first quarter of 1956 which, as I explained, means you are a March 1956 baby (Jan, Feb, MARCH). So you might need to search to there.

It's easy when you get the hang of this, honestly. It's just that things don't quite work as you automatically assume, it's all a little bit quirky.
Last edited by XFool on July 5th, 2022, 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

XFool
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511975

Postby XFool » July 5th, 2022, 8:04 pm

pje16 wrote:
staffordian wrote:
pje16 wrote:
PhaseThree wrote:I take it the information on the FreeBMD site is insufficient for your needs ?

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Has anyone tried this
I tried to find myself
when I enter my DoB it says

You can only use "Death age/DoB" with a Deaths search. Please select "Deaths" for Type.

So why does the box say
"death age / DoB"
It's either useless or I am missing a trick

The text relating to that box is ambiguous.
It is only for deaths, as you have discovered, but allows either the year of birth or age at death to be entered in order to narrow down the potential hits. It must, of course, be used in addition to a surname and normally a first name.


I have tried multiple times
First name, First and second name, Surname
Various dates
it either come ups with
1) nothing
2) list several years after I was born
3) Lists that I should be on but am not
There is nothing weird about my name, place or date of birth
That website is appalling
I will not be wasting anymore time on it

Have you read my post?
Last edited by XFool on July 5th, 2022, 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

staffordian
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511976

Postby staffordian » July 5th, 2022, 8:07 pm

staffordian wrote:
pje16 wrote:
PhaseThree wrote:I take it the information on the FreeBMD site is insufficient for your needs ?

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Has anyone tried this
I tried to find myself
when I enter my DoB it says

You can only use "Death age/DoB" with a Deaths search. Please select "Deaths" for Type.

So why does the box say
"death age / DoB"
It's either useless or I am missing a trick

The text relating to that box is ambiguous.
It is only for deaths, as you have discovered, but allows either the year of birth or age at death to be entered in order to narrow down the potential hits. It must, of course, be used in addition to a surname and normally a first name.


To expand on the usefulness of this death age /DoB box...

Say you are searching for a death registration for someone, and you've no idea when they died.

Enter their name, then for the date range, enter the year they were born (say 1915) as the start date and perhaps 100 years later as the finish date.

You might get several hundred results which match the criteria.

But if you also enter the DoB, it will exclude most results. It might find a 1 year old who died in 1916, a 30 year old who died in 1945 etc etc but will exclude the others.

FreeBMD isn't perfect but nearly all the limitations are limitations with the indexes from which the data is taken as different things were recorded in the indexes at different times. Eg, mothers maiden name being quoted for births only started in the early 1900s and death information changed over the years, sometimes including age, sometimes actual date of birth and earlier, neither were quoted.

staffordian
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511979

Postby staffordian » July 5th, 2022, 8:13 pm

XFool wrote:
pje16 wrote:
PhaseThree wrote:I take it the information on the FreeBMD site is insufficient for your needs ?

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Has anyone tried this
I tried to find myself
when I enter my DoB it says

You can only use "Death age/DoB" with a Deaths search. Please select "Deaths" for Type.

So why does the box say
"death age / DoB"
It's either useless or I am missing a trick

Ah! You are likely missing a trick, or two, or... (You only need that box for a search of a death - for birth you just search the relevant dates. But see below!)

The very first time I tried using FreeBMD to find myself in the index of Birth registrations, I had my original birth certificate open on my knees. I did succeed in finding myself - at the SEVENTH attempt! As you may imagine, by the fifth failure I started thinking: "What's this? Is there something I haven't been told? Am I who I think I am?"

Don't blame FreeBMD, which is excellent. The issues come from needing a clear understanding of what is going on. There are a whole series of small 'wrinkles' involved in the matter of, in particular, Birth registrations and the GRO. Which, for simplicity, I avoided mentioning in the above.

e.g. Given the assumed age of most TLF members - the GRO will have no online searchable index records for you! Hence you have to use FreeBMD (which the UK GRO will refer you on to, if you go looking there for online references to your birth)

You need to know your birthday... Obviously! I hear you say. But not quite for the reasons you may think. What you will be searching for is your birth registration, not your birth. Legally this must happen up to 42 days after your birth. So at least you know it is going to be after your birth, but the actual date is most likely unknown and indeed isn't even recorded in the index. :)

All that is needed is the quarter of the year you name appears in the appropriate (registration district) register index (along with your mother's maiden name as check). The quarters, for the GRO Index are... March, June, September and December. :? i.e. They are defined by the last month of the quarter, not the first.

So... say you were actually born on 22nd December 1955. Naturally you know you are a 1955 baby and search up to say the end of 1955. No joy? But that could be because - in terms of registration - you are a March 1956 baby! Registration rollover (Birth + up to 42 days) takes you into the first quarter of 1956 which, as I explained, means you are a March 1956 baby (Jan, Feb, MARCH). So you might need to search to there.

It's easy when you get the hang of this, honestly. It's just that things don't quite work as you automatically assume, it's all a little bit quirky.


To expand slightly on this excellent summary, place names are another potential pitfall. Best to only select a county at first (or even leave these fields untouched). The district field is not necessarily the same name as the area where you were born, it is the name of the registration district in which the birth was registered, which might not quite be the same.

pje16
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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511984

Postby pje16 » July 5th, 2022, 8:23 pm

Yes I read that took SEVEN attempts
I have used Findmypast and Ancestry
One go on each and found me straight way

What a shambles of a site
Uses the term Dob when it really wants date of registration
I could go on but it is beyond my patience
OK you pay for the other 2 I mentioned, but they work

I guess "pay peanuts get monkeys" comes to mind

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Re: Inspect register of births?

#511985

Postby XFool » July 5th, 2022, 8:25 pm

staffordian wrote:
XFool wrote:
pje16 wrote:So why does the box say
"death age / DoB"
It's either useless or I am missing a trick

It's easy when you get the hang of this, honestly. It's just that things don't quite work as you automatically assume, it's all a little bit quirky.

To expand slightly on this excellent summary, place names are another potential pitfall. Best to only select a county at first (or even leave these fields untouched). The district field is not necessarily the same name as the area where you were born, it is the name of the registration district in which the birth was registered, which might not quite be the same.

Indeed. I nearly added this further twist in my reply to pje. My experience with FreeBMD is that starting cold can lead to disappointment and puzzling failure. When you come to understand all the quirks, which as you say are really to do with the GRO Indexes themselves, you get the 'magic' in your fingers and away you go!

The point is (unless you are reasonably young or very old*), you have to use FreeBMD to order a proper birth certificate online from the GRO using the GRO Index at the £11 rate. Unless you want to simply send them your full details and ask them to do all the legwork for you. But this will cost full whack (£35, I think) and what with the pandemic and WFH it may take a while. I have never used the GRO Indexes.

* The GRO has its own online searchable indexes for births, but there is a 50 year hole in them (from memory, so likely unreliable: from 1934 - 1984) so most TLF members likely cannot use them. :)


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