Birth Records Searching

Births

Briefed by www.birthrecordsuk.co.uk


Searching for a birth

The churches in England & Wales have been recording baptisms, marriages and burials at parish level for centuries. However, the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths – in other words, record-keeping by the state – did not begin until July 1837. At that time, the legal jurisdiction of England & Wales was subdivided, for the purposes of registration, into administrative areas known as registration districts. Within each district a district registrar would be appointed to take responsibility for the recording of births, marriages and deaths within their district.

Four times a year, a copy of the district registers was made for the Registrar General, who gathered all the registers for England & Wales and collated them into a single countrywide index, arranged alphabetically by surname (and then alphabetically by forename within each surname). The indexes to the registers are quarterly rather than annual in scope – the four quarters being known as March, June, September and December. Each of these covers the month itself and the two preceding months, as follows:
January, February, March registrations in the March quarter
April, May, June registrations in the June quarter
July, August, September registrations in the September quarter
October, November, December registrations in the December quarter

Note that the quarters contain the births registered within them, which is not necessarily the same as births which took place within them. The reason why this is so is that legally there are 42 days within which to register a birth with the district registrar. This means that some births which took place during a month in one quarter will be registered in a month in the next quarter. Clearly, this is most common for births which took place within the last month of a quarter. So, for example, a birth in December might be registered in January (or, indeed, in February) the following year, which means that it would be registered not in the December quarter but in the March quarter of the year following that in which it took place. Normally, then, where you have an exact date of birth, you will find the entry for the birth you are looking for in the same or the next quarter, as follows:

January, February, March births in the March or June quarter
April, May, June births in the June or September quarter
July, August, September births in the September or December quarter
October, November, December births in the December or the following March quarter

Troubleshooting

Most family trees will, however, have one or more births which were registered late. In theory at least, there was a fine for late registration and some explaining to do. If you do not find the entry you are seeking in the same or the next quarter, therefore, it is sensible at least to check the two immediately following quarters, to cover the possibility of late registration.

Age adjustments

If, despite having an exact date, you do not find the entry for the birth you are looking for at or immediately after that date, treat the year with some caution. If, for example, the date is from, say, a modern (post-1969) death certificate, it may well be the case that the day and month are correct but the year is not. It is not at all uncommon to find that a person has modified their age – for instance, when declaring their age at marriage – and then this fiction has stuck with them over time. In respect of other people, their ages simply may have become hazy over time. In any event, in these circumstances, try checking a year or two either side of the given date, beginning with the same quarters. For example, if you have a birth which supposedly took place in January 1898 and it is not listed as it should be in the March or June quarters 1898, nor registered late in the September or December quarters 1898, next check the March and June quarters in both 1897 and 1899, as necessary.

Spelling Variations

If you still have no success, you may wish to consider spelling variations, either those genuinely in use by the family, or those accidentally created by registrars or by those copying them or preparing the indexes.

You can have the search undertaken for you via www.birthrecordsuk.co.uk