From the start of Civil Registration all births and deaths have had to be registered at
the local Register Office. Likewise, marriages would be registered at the venue or at the Register
Office. Quarterly, all of the registration entries were copied and sent to the General Register Office (GRO).
So, there are two versions of the registers, an original held at the local Register Office and
a copy held at the General Register Office. Indexes to both of these register sets are finding
there way online via websites such as Cheshire BMD and Free BMD. Although the GRO copies have national
coverage, they are well known for their errors and omissions due to the copying process that
created them. By working from the original registers the local BMD websites aim to offer a more
accurate and complete set compared to the GRO versions.
The aim of the tutorials on this page is to
introduce the various websites in the Local BMD Project and explain how to
get the best from them, and also highlight the differences between them and the GRO versions.
The Tutorials
Since the beginning of the Local BMD Project I have had the pleasure
and honour of being asked to speak at various Family History Society
and U3A meetings to talk
about the various Local BMD websites and how to get the best results from them. I'm usually asked to
speak for about an hour, so some of my examples often can't be used due to the time constraints.
One suggestion made to me was to turn my talk into a series of videos, so here they are. This series
of short video tutorials are my talk split into self-contained small chunks. I recommend that you
view them in order first, but then dip in at random if you need a refresher.
The tutorials are all on the YouTube website and so I hope that the
video controls should be familiar to most of
you. I recommend that you view these in full-screen mode by using the YouTube control which will appear in the
bottom right of the video once you have started playing it.
Introduction to these tutorials and the basic information on civil registration.
Layout of the Local BMD websites : an introduction to the various pages within the Local BMD Project websites.
Births part 1 : starting with a wide search and then homing in on an entry.
Births part 2 : should you search using full names or just initials?
Births part 3 : covering the options for searching using mother's maiden name.
Marriages part 1 : demonstrating a marriage search and comparing the results to the GRO versions.
Marriages part 2 : demonstrating a further marriage search based on just knowing a lady's married name.
Deaths : completing the picture demonstrating a search for a death.
Multi-region search and multiple marriages : demonstrating how multiple regions can be searched in one go, and the significance of two separate marriage entries for one couple.
Name Variations : showing how to search based on the sound of a name.
Summary and Orders Pages : showing the features of the Summary and Ordering pages.
Downloading the Results : demonstrating the two places from which search results can be saved to disc.
Differences between GRO and Local Regions : highlighting the differences between the regions and districts used by the local register offices and the GRO.
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