East London, S.A.

[Dennis]

Hi,

I was hoping that East London, S.A would have street views.

dennis

[Currie]

Hello Dennis,

Street View appears to be limited to the following countries at present:
United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

There’s clearly still a lot of work to be done in the UK and there’s no coverage yet in Ireland or Canada as well as South Africa.

I guess Google will get this done as fast as they can but as well as photographing they have to sort out the legal situation etc. that applies in each country.

All the best,
Alan

[Dennis]

Hi Alan,

I was wondering why I could not find BMDs for Brits who moved to South Africa and raised families there. Apparently S.A. does not allow dual-citizenship. All those credits I've wasted on FindMyPast.

dennis

[Currie]

Hello Dennis,

I don’t think citizenship matters too much when it comes to registration of BDM events. If a country has a registration system and if registration is compulsory then the record of the event should be within that system. Any person residing in S.A. would have been required to comply with any S.A. law, regardless of their citizenship.

In some Commonwealth countries such as Australia, and Canada and New Zealand, the citizenship thing wasn’t really an issue as everybody was a British Subject. That was the situation until fairly recent times. South Africans were British subjects until 1962 when the country became a Republic and left the Commonwealth. http://en.allexperts.com/e/s/so/south_a ... ty_law.htm

There was the entirely voluntary system of registering BDM with the local U.K. Consul and some people would have done that if they had strong emotional ties to the U.K. or if they intended to return there at the end of their working life, or if they felt the need to register events as a type of insurance against future problems or to facilitate their children's education, or whatever. See this site for details of the current rules, the very high cost would no doubt have discouraged many http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-liv ... ges-civil/

Note that the Consul system does not currently apply to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, South Africa, and U.K. Overseas Territories, the reason being that the standard of registration in these countries is similar to that of the U.K. I’m not sure how long that rule has existed but there was no BDM registration in S.A. prior to about 1900.

Hope that’s interesting,
Alan

[Dennis]

Hi Alan,

If the following is correct http://www.paralegaladvice.org.za/docs/chap02/02.html

It could explain why I'm not finding people on FindMyPast who were born to Brits who moved there and spent the remainder of their lives there along with the children & grandchildren. FMP has searches for born, married & died overseas but it seems limited if the event was not made available to the Brit Consulate. For example, I have a Jean Leigh who was born in Johannesburg, S.A; married November 24th 1956 to a Jock McMurchie, her grandparents were Scottish missionaries. I can find no record of that marriage on FMP's marriages overseas.

[Currie]

Hello Dennis,

When you think about it , the emigration of Brits, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the next, must have consisted of millions of people, and the BDM events for them and their children and grandchildren must have totalled many tens of millions. I don’t know how many of these FMP would have in their database of overseas births etc but I suspect it would be an infinitesimal percentage.

Unless they were on holiday, or working overseas and had an intention to return to the UK, or maybe if they didn’t feel they were part of that society, or if there was no local registration, or for whatever other reason, I don’t think there would have been too many emigrants who bothered to get involved with yet another bureaucratic and expensive and unnecessary process of registering BDM events with a British Consul.

I think that’s the real reason you’re not finding them. They may have remained British Subjects but for all intents and purposes they had all become South Africans.

All the best,
Alan

[Currie]

Back again Dennis,

It looks like the Google camera car is travelling through South Africa so hopefully East London will have Street View before too long. http://maps.google.com/intl/en_us/help/ ... -view.html

These are the cities and regions on the agenda:

Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, East London, Bloemfontein, Eastern Cape, Free State, Guateng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, Northern Cape, and Western Cape.

All the best,
Alan

[Dennis]

Hi. Alan,

When I'm in London, England, the last half of September, I'm wondering if a visit to the S.A. Embassy off Trafalgar Sq. would elicit any info on my kinfolk?


Regards. dennis

[Montrose Budie]

Hi All

Hello Dennis,

....snipped...............

There was the entirely voluntary system of registering BDM with the local U.K. Consul and some people would have done that if they had strong emotional ties to the U.K. or if they intended to return there at the end of their working life, or if they felt the need to register events as a type of insurance against future problems or to facilitate their children's education, or whatever. See this site for details of the current rules, the very high cost would no doubt have discouraged many http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-liv ... ges-civil/

This is precisely the point. For a UK citizen living abroad it is just an option to register a marriage with the local UK consul, or the High Commission for Commonwealth countries not referred to below. Some did, most didn't.

In other words there is no UK legal requirement to go this route, never mind that it's time consuming, bureaucratic and expensive, - I see that the current cost, including one copy certificate is over £160 !

In addition, if the matter if left until the return to the UK, all sorts of provisions for translation and verification of the document from the other country have to be met.


It certainly used to be the case, - I'm a wee bit unsure about the current system, - that a BMD record coming into GRO in England where a Scot was clearly involved, was automatically copied to GROS in Edinburgh, from whom copies can be obtained for the standard £10 on-line at ScotlandsPeople. Such records fall into the GROS Minor Records category.


Note also that the various England & Wales BMD indexes available on various websites are just that, - England & Wales only, and don't include overseas records. The one website that I know of that does have these overseas records is FindMyPast (just checked and my aunt's 1991 death in Portugal is there).

Note that the Consul system does not currently apply to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, South Africa, and U.K. Overseas Territories, the reason being that the standard of registration in these countries is similar to that of the U.K. I’m not sure how long that rule has existed but there was no BDM registration in S.A. prior to about 1900.

Hope that’s interesting,
Alan

I'm unsure about the length of time this has been the case.

mb

[Currie]

Google Earth and Google Maps now have Street Views of East London.

Alan