Searching English Records

[ihenderson73]

Hello

Can anyone give me any useful tips for locating birth and death records in England?

My grandfather was born in Lanarkshire in 1904, but died sometime between 1960 and 1967. I think my grandparents lived in Luton when he died, because I seem to remember hearing stories about him working for Ford's in Dagenham. Also, my uncle was born in 1939 (I suspect this was in Bedfordshire), and was killed in a car crash with his wife in Yorkshire in 1967.

For some reason I'm not having as much joy with finding these records as I would have if they had lived (and died) in Scotland. Any ideas?


TIA

Ian

[LesleyB]

Hi Ian
With more recent English records, which is the category your query falls into, I go to www.findmypast.com, cough up some cash and work my way through the death indexes, year by year, then ordering the cert. if I really need it. (sometimes the index entry is enough for me to know I've found the peroson I was looking for).

I don't really know of an alternative way to do it...not often having to deal with English records, but when I do, that's where I go. Someone else my be able to suggest a better alternative. Unfortunately you can't do the kind of search you can on ScotlandsPeople - "here is the name, are there any matching results?" you just have to trawl through the likely years.

Best wishes
Lesley

[AndrewP]

I think my grandparents lived in Luton when he died, because I seem to remember hearing stories about him working for Ford's in Dagenham.

Dagenham is in Essex (or looks like outer London these days). If he worked in car manufacturing in Luton, then I would suspect it was Vauxhall.

If you ever discover the art of tracing people in England, I will be intrigued to read about it. 50% of my ancestry is south of the border, but less than 5% of the ancestors I have found information about are from that group. The Scots 50% have been a lot easier to research.

All the best,

AndrewP

[ihenderson73]

Hi Andrew

I'm sure I remember my late grandmother making reference to how my grandfather had worked for Ford. Having said that, it's highly possible that I've got confused or just switched off - those were the kinds of stories that we heard constantly over the years as she and her older sister took long trips down memory lane!

I've actually just rattled an email off to a work colleague of mine, who has more than a toe in the English records since most of her family is from south of the border. I'm hoping that she might be able to shed some light on it for me. I'll let you know if that turns anything up.

Ian

[Currie]

Hello Ian,

I’ve used the same method as Lesley for those later events. The images are also available at Ancestry if you have a subscription there. Trawling through the images can be a real pain unless you are looking for an unusual surname in which case you can collect the whole kit and caboodle for future reference. http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/rectyp ... o_it=22305

The English/Welsh Index records are being digitised as part of the DOVE project. It’s taking longer than expected but should be up and running by mid 2009. This could be great or a great disappointment. Probably a case of wait and see but at least it will be free. Some details are here:
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/about ... ents.asp#0
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id ... 22b.213.27
http://www.ffhs.org.uk/news/news070207.php

The London Times Archives may be worth a look in case there’s a death announcement but you have to be lucky. British Phone Books on Ancestry may provide clues.

The availability of a Will is a possibility if you have a reasonable idea of the year of death. I haven’t tried this but the details are here
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/cms/1226.htm

Don’t forget to check the IGI and worldconnect http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ etc in case someone else has been digging and planted something useful there. Also see the sticky for any other possible research sources.

The information contained on English Certificates is substantially less than that on Scottish ones. For the latest information on Fees etc. see http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/order ... /index.asp
For very detailed information about English certificates see http://www.thosedixons.net/certificates/indexbmd.html

Hope this helps,
Alan

[ihenderson73]

Hi Alan

By using the link that you supplied me for Ancestry.co.uk, I've now managed to get the index information for what I believe to have been my uncle's death. I'm going to confirm this by looking for his wife's details also.

I'll keep looking for my grandfather's details though.

[crayspond]

Hi Ian,

Sorry if this is a bit late but i only saw your posting while looking for info for my own research in England.
I too had to look for my grandfather who had made a new life for himself in England. Here is how i found out something about him.
I wrote to the (Pensions dept) at

Department of Social Security
Special section A
National Insurance Contributions Branch
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE98 1YX

This was in 1998 and at that time you could only write to them, I explained i was looking for some information on him, i did have his date of birth and full name but that was all.
They replied with a letter saying that he had died and the date of death (which can be helpful when looking for other info) in Southampton. From that info i was able to order a copy of his death cert and that gave me an address and next of kin.
I hope this might be of interest to you - or anyone else who might be watching this post.
Good luck,

Ailsa

[trish1]

The indexes for births/deaths and marriages after 1983 can be searched in a similar way to the Scottish ones. They contain date of birth on death records & mother's maiden name on birth records, plus the surname of the "other party" when searching for a marriage. This index is on ancestry (fee or subscription), I don't know where else it may be.

FreeBDM which provides index searching is now well into the 1920s, so from 1930s-1980s are still a labour of love.
http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/

Some of the counties do have their own indexes and it is worthwhile checking here to see if your county has useful information available
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/

The ones I use alot are Stafford & Cheshire but there are many others
http://cheshirebmd.org.uk/
http://www.bmsgh.org/staffsbmd/index.html

GRO was intending to have a U beaut new index available this year but it seems to have been put into the category of "In the fullness of time". It is now likely that FreeBDM will be complete before this happens (if it happens). They have lovely names for the project and ongoing evaluations, but the project itself doesn't appear to be ongoing very quickly.

For more recent information, England/Wales is still much easier than Australia. Birth indexes and certificates more than c. 80 years old (in some states 100 years old) are simply NOT available, except to the nearest and dearest. At least I know in England there is a chance of finding the right information.

Trish

[Currie]

Hello Trish,

There’s a bit about latest developments and useful links on this site:
http://scottishancestry.blogspot.com/20 ... -more.html

It looks like the Dove, Magpie and Eagle projects are all up in the air. Let’s hope they don’t develop Bird Flu and have to be put down, otherwise they could end up as someone’s Christmas Dinner.

The “emergency internal strategic review” mentioned sounds very much like panic mode.

Alan

[trish1]

Hi Alan

This was the item from GRO that no doubt led to the others
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/about ... ents.asp#0

"Looking ahead" is an interesting title. It seems the project will have a similar fate to some of the transportation ticketing systems in Australia. Shame they couldn't just do a decent index to start with. I recently received a certificate from Southport 9 days after I ordered it from Australia. That is a far better service than any registry in Australia (except the online Vic images), so it seems (as usual) they attacked the issue from the wrong angle.

Trish