Birth, marriage and death records for family tree research

Birth, marriage and death (BMD) records are one of the key building blocks of family history and will help you to identify major events in your ancestor’s life.

By obtaining certificates from the General Register Office (GRO) for these three key events, you’ll obtain important dates and facts about your ancestor and can take your family tree back another generation by discovering other family members, as we show you here, an exploration of birth, marriage and death records.

Quick Links

• Birth certificates
  • How to get information from birth certificates
  • Information held on birth certificates
• Marriage certificates
  • Information on Marriage certificates
• Death certificates
  • Details on death certificates
  • Who registered the death?
  • Wills, probate & burials
• How to obtain a birth, marriage or death certificate

The official registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales began on 1 July 1837 (1855 for Scotland and 1864 for Ireland).

Before 1837, such records had been kept by the church (these are known as parish records) but because this record keeping wasn’t compulsory, not all births, marriages and deaths were recorded, and not all such events that were recorded have survived.

The beginning of civil registration meant that the information collected about births, marriages and deaths was standardised and centralised, giving you a much better chance of discovering information about your ancestors.

Birth, marriage and death certificate overviews

Read on to discover what information you can find out from birth, marriage and death records.

Birth certificates

A birth certificate gives the date and place of birth, name and occupation of the father, name of the mother (with maiden name). If the father isn’t named, this can indicate that the couple weren’t  married or the father was unknown.

Having the name of the mother and father of an ancestor will help you to track down their marriage, which in turn will provide you with the names of the fathers of the bride and groom, taking your research back another generation. The place of birth can also be a help in finding the family in sources such as the census and street directories.

Watch this 60-second guide to birth certificates…

How to get information from birth certificates

Before ordering a birth certificate, you should refer to the birth indexes online, to ensure you have found the correct ancestor.

The birth indexes can tell you the following about your ancestor:

• First name and surname
• Year the birth was registered
• Quarter the birth was registered (January to March, April to June, July to September or October to December, referred to as the March, June, September and December quarters)
• Name of the registration district
• Volume and page number
• From the September quarter of 1911 onwards, the birth indexes also include the mother’s maiden name.

If this information proves that the ancestor in question is the one you are researching, you can purchase a copy of the birth certificate.

The cheapest website on which to buy a copy of an English or Welsh birth certificate is the official government website. 

Information held on an English or Welsh birth certificate

The information on an English or Welsh birth certificate includes:

• When and where born
• Name, if any
• Sex
• Name and surname of father
• Name, surname and maiden surname of mother
• Occupation of father
• Signature, description and residence of informant
• When registered
• Signature of registrar
• Name entered after registration

Birth certificates for Scotland

Civil registration wasn’t introduced north of the border until 1 January 1855 – but the system that was adopted was far more ambitious than that in place in England and Wales.

The range of questions asked in the first year of civil registration in Scotland was simply astonishing; in addition to the information recorded by the English GRO, the Scottish authorities required the time of birth; the date and place of the parents’ marriage; the father’s age and birthplace; his previous issue, living and deceased (numbers and gender only) and the mother’s age and birthplace to be recorded.

This proved an impossible task to maintain and all but the first two were dropped in 1856. The inclusion of the parents’ marriage details is enormously useful to us as family historians. See the ScotlandsPeople website. Bear in mind that the digital copies of the registers – giving all the details of a certificate – are available for many years

Birth certificates for Ireland

Ireland was also behind England and Wales when it came to registering births. It wasn’t until 1864 that the Irish GRO began the process. The system employed and the layout of the certificates were, with the addition of an explicit requirement to include the ‘dwelling place’ of the child’s father, identical to England and Wales.

From 1922, births occurring in the six northern counties of Ireland were registered by the newly formed General Register Office (Northern Ireland). For the Republic of Ireland order certificates, click here and for Northern Ireland click here. 

Birth certificates for the Channel Islands & the Isle of Man

Births have been registered by the civil authorities in Jersey since 1842, in Guernsey since 1840, in Alderney since 1850 (with some gaps) and in Sark since 1925. On the Isle of Man, the authorities began registration of non-Anglican births in 1849 but full civil registration wasn’t introduced until 1878 for births (and for marriages not until 1884).

---

Marriage certificates

A marriage certificate gives the date and place of marriage, name, occupation and residence of the bride and groom, and name and occupation of both fathers.

Other information includes marital status (for example, bachelor/spinster or widower/widow) and the names of witnesses, who were often family members or friends. When searching for a marriage certificate, remember that not all marriages took place before the birth of a child.

The marriage indexes can tell you the following about your ancestor:

• First name and surname of the bride and groom
• Year the marriage was registered
• Quarter the marriages was registered (March, June, September or December)
• Name of the registration district
• Volume and page number

These are all very useful for helping to pinpoint your ancestors’ marriage so that you can order the marriage certificate.

Here's a quick video guide to marriage certificates…

Marriage certificates for England & Wales

The cheapest website to buy a copy of an English or Welsh marriage from is the official government website. 

The main body of the certificate as it was introduced in 1837 in England and Wales has remained unchanged to this day. It is identical in content wherever the marriage took place; exactly the same forms are used by the C of E, Protestant Nonconformists, Roman Catholics, Jews and Quakers and indeed by the local registration service for civil ceremonies.

The wording at the top and towards the bottom of the certificate varies slightly depending on the denomination and tells you where, how and by whom the marriage ceremony was performed. 

The information on an English or Welsh marriage certificate includes:

• When married
• Name and surname of bride and groom
• Age
• Condition (marital status)
• Rank or profession
• Residence at the time of marriage
• Fathers’ names
• Rank or profession of fathers
• Names of witnesses

Marriage certificates for Scotland

Registration of marriages in Scotland began on 1 May 1855 and, as with the associated records of births and deaths, the amount of information recorded is far greater than in England and Wales. In that golden first year of registration, the birthplaces of the bride and groom were recorded as well as the number of former marriages and the number of children from those marriages.

These details were dropped from 1856 but the certificates still continued to record the names of both parents, including the maiden names of the mothers. Visit ScotlandsPeople website for more information.

Marriage certificates for Ireland

Registration of all non-Roman Catholic marriages commenced on 1 April 1845 but all other marriages weren’t recorded by the state until 1 January 1864, when the full general registration system came into force.

For the Republic of Ireland order certificates here and for Northern Ireland click here.

---

Death certificates

Civil registration of deaths in England and Wales began on 1 July 1837, replacing the Church of England’s records of burials as the primary legal record. It’s fair to say that, as a genealogical source, death certificates fall far short of what we might expect from documents recording one of the three main events in our ancestors’ lives.

In fact, some family historians consider death certificates to be of so little use that they rarely, if ever, go to the trouble and expense of obtaining copies of them.

Most researchers, however, like to ‘kill off their ancestors’, mapping their whole lives from cradle to grave. In the old days, when the only way to do this was to carry out a physical search through the General Register Office’s (GRO) index books, this could be a time-consuming and exhausting process. Nowadays, unless the name is particularly common, it’s usually possible to find our ancestors’ deaths quite easily, using an online database such as FreeBMD.

Initially, the GRO indexes recorded just the name of the deceased and the registration district in which the death occurred. From 1866, the age of the deceased (in years) was added to the index (making identification of individuals much easier) and in that year only, middle names were replaced by initials.

In the September quarter of 1910 middle names were dropped again in favour of initials, but there were no further changes until the June quarter of 1969, when the deceased’s date of birth started to be shown instead of their age at death (see below).

Watch the 60-second video below for more on death certificates…

Details on death certificates

The following information was recorded on death certificates in England and Wales between 1 July 1837 and 31 March 1969:

• When and where died
• Name and surname
• Sex
• Age
• Occupation
• Cause of death
• Signature, description and residence of informant
• When registered.

It’s important to bear in mind that the information recorded on a death certificate is only as reliable as the knowledge of the person supplying it. Ages can often be no more than an intelligent guess and there is a demonstrable tendency to give ages in round numbers; research concerning ages at death recorded in the late 19th century reveals that people were apparently around 20% more likely to die aged 80 than they were to die at the ages of 79 or 81!

The cheapest website to buy a copy of an English or Welsh marriage from is the official government website. 

Who registered the death?

Don’t ignore the information about the informant. This was often a relative, although the relationship isn’t always stated. In the case of an adult male, this could be the only useful genealogical detail recorded on the certificate. Even if the informant turns out to have been a neighbour, their identity could provide a vital clue.

Improved format

From 1 April 1969, the form of the death certificate was changed with the addition of the date and place of birth of the deceased and, for married or widowed women, the maiden surname. These details are genealogical gold dust and serve to highlight the dearth of useful information on earlier death certificates. The date of birth is of particular interest to us now that the 1939 National Register is available, as we can use the details to find matches in the records.

Wills, probate & burials

Death records have obvious links to records of burials and wills. The entries in the National Probate calendars record a substantial amount of detail about the individuals concerned, although this varies significantly over the years.

The calendars (from 1858 right up until 1967) record so much information that, for family history purposes, they can virtually be used to replace a death certificate. The person’s full name, residence, date and place of death and the names of their executors or administrators are recorded; it’s just the age, cause of death and information about the informant that are missing.

However, not everyone left a will; to put it in perspective, 528,624 deaths were registered in England and Wales in the year 1880, but the probate calendars record the wills and administrations of just 42,608 people who died that year, representing only 8 per cent of the total number of deaths, and this figure includes a significant number of people who died in other parts of the UK or overseas.

For many researchers, tracing a record of a burial is as important as finding the death certificate, particularly if it can lead to the discovery of a gravestone. Records of burials and monumental inscriptions can also be used as a tool to identify death records.

Scottish death certificates

Unlike their English and Welsh equivalents, Scottish death certificates represent a significant genealogical source. The names of both parents (including the mother’s maiden surname) are recorded as standard, although it’s worth considering the reliability of this information. In 1855, the first year of civil registration in Scotland, additional information was recorded including the deceased’s birthplace, the names and years of birth of their children, the years of death of any children who had predeceased them and their place of burial. These were all dropped in 1856, with the exception of the place of burial, which survived until 1860. Visit www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.

Irish death certificates

Irish death certificates are identical to the standard English and Welsh format with the addition of a column to record the individual’s ‘condition’; ie their marital status.  For the Republic of Ireland order certificates from www.groireland.ie and for Northern Ireland go to www.nidirect.gov.uk/gro.

---

How to obtain a birth, marriage or death certificate

The quickest way to obtain a birth, marriage or death certificate is to find out the GRO reference before placing your order.

This shows the year the event was recorded (not necessarily the year it took place), the quarter of the year in which it was recorded, the district of registration, and the volume and page number.

Your search for the reference will be quicker and more accurate if you can narrow down in which district the event would have taken place. You can search the GRO indexes for free online at Freebmd and on commercial websites including Ancestry and FindMyPast, which charge for the information.

Six large libraries (in Birmingham, Bridgend, Manchester, Newcastle, Plymouth and The British Library) plus the City of Westminster Archives Centre, offer free of charge access to the GRO indexes on microfiche, whilst a list of organisations which hold full or regional index microfiches can be found on the GRO website.

Once you’ve found the reference, visit the GRO website to order the certificate. Delivery is four working days if you gave the GRO reference, or fifteen working days if not.

Scottish and Irish birth, marriage and death records

Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in Scotland began in 1855 and you can obtain records from the ScotlandsPeople website.

BMD registration in Ireland dates to 1864, with certificates available from GRO Ireland and GRO Northern Ireland.