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Hi,

I'm new to the message boards.
I love in Surrey but my Dads side of the family are from Newcastle and before that Scotland. I want to find records of births/marriages/deaths etc, but I don't necessarily need copies. Is there any way I can find out this type of information online??

Also, my Mums side of the family are from Paris, and we have traced the family back quite far, but my great great Grandad went back to Paris, and I don't know how to find records for that. Do I need to look on French sites???

Thanks,
Sheryl :-|

you could try family search its free

https://familysearch.org/

also for uk only

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/

You can access Scotland's People, find the certificates, BUT you have to buy credits on the site in order to see what is on the certificate ..................... although you can then download


There is NO way to see copies of certificates in England and Wales for nothing ............ you either have to buy them from GRO for £9.25, including postage OR pay the subscription to join a site where you MAY be able to see historic records for some areas of the UK.


France ........... yes, you have to find your way through French sites, which I think means knowing where he went.

Genealogy and tracing relatives is not a cheap hobby

malyon is correct, you may be able to see some records on Family Search, which is the Mormon site .................. but search only on the Records section.

and be aware that there is much information on a certificate that that site often does not show, for example names of fathers or witnesses, that may be of great help in your research.

They may also direct you to one of the subscription sites in order to see the actual certificate

Thanks guys, that's great info, I'll have a look into that. :-)

Hi Sheryl, a lot depends on the timescale that you're looking for records.

You can view many images for Newcastle baptisms, marriages and burials up to around the mid 1880s on FamilySearch using the Durham Bishop's Transcripts:

https://goo.gl/n0hnEu

Scroll down the page and you'll see a number of Newcastle parishes listed.

There is no search facility, it's a case of browsing the images - but if you know when/where an event took place (perhaps by finding an entry on FreeBMD) then you can hit lucky. I've got loads of Newcastle & Northumberland images that way.

You might find Northumberland transcriptions here, but only parishes close to the County Durham border

http://www.durhamrecordsonline.com/index.php?q=1&cookiecheck=1

Hi, I live in france and have a certain knowledge of french bmd but unfortunately I am going on holiday tomorrow and will be away for about a month. If you would like me to have a look when I get back then let me have the details of the french side of your family, or at least what you know, and I will have a look when I get back to see if I can find anything.
Lots of departments have their bmd on line now and they are free to view and copies of bmd are free of charge but you do need to know where the person was born.
French records are a mine of informationas they give details of parents with their ages and places of birth, when they were married etc etc. so you can find out so much more information than you can on english records.
If you don't want me to look, then aparantley ancestry has a certain amount of Paris records although I haven't had a look so don't know if they are complete and as suggested earlier, familysearch aparantly also has some records so good luck with your research.

Malyon is incorrect in implying there is UK coverage on:
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/local_bmd
it's only England & Wales.

What that site has is not the GRO BMD certs, but the index to them - the index gives a ref which you can use to purchase a specific cert.
Here's an example of each sort of ref:

Births Dec 1874 (>99%)
Churchill Winston Leonard Woodstock 3a 695

Deaths Sep 1910 (>99%)
NIGHTINGALE Florence 90 St.Geo.H.Sq 1a 204

Marriages Sep 1907 (>99%)
CONAN-DOYLE Arthur St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 1155
DOYLE Arthur Conan St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 1155
ELLIOTT Lily St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 1155
LECKIE Jean Elizabeth St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 1155

The marr page should contain an even number of names.
Here, the first two names are the same, but here are seperate entries depending on whether one treats the surname as Conan-Doyle or as Doyle with Conan being a mid-name.
In general, one cannot identify from this who wed whom pre-1912. Arthur did marry Jean. Either Lily's page # or her spouse's # is not transcribed correctly, so one can't even guess her spouse without more work, e.g., checking the images to verify transcriptions.

These 3 certs are online, so you can see what the index omits in these cases:
http://tinyurl.com/lrk36xp [near end]



Although most folk buy BMD certs from the GRO, one can also buy them from the local registers office that now holds the original registrar's registers.
Some of these local offices have their own indexes online - see:
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/local_bmd
These indexes don't always have the same info as the GRO index - if they tell you the local ref, then that contains info not in the GRO index, althoigh they don't aways decode it for you.
In particular, the local ref usually has an entry # for a marr, not a local page #.
Even if no local ref is shown, there usually is a link that triggers a search by local ref for spouses.
This is useful for the north-east - most of Durham has local indexes at least partly online.
Northumberland only has Tynemouth/North Tyne online, (using some of my ancestors as an) e.g.:

Marriages Jun 1855 (>99%)
Feeney Margaret Tynemouth 10b 293
TAYLOR Joseph Tynemouth 10b 293
TUFF Dorothy Jane Tynemouth 10b 293
YOUNGER Ralph Tynemouth 10b 293

Although North Tyne has mistranscribed Ralph's surname, here's the local hit:
YOUNG, Ralph
FEENEY, Margaret
Marriage date: 1855
Register Book, Entry Number: C-24 2, 465
[The local ref has an (undecoded) church code C-24 (it's a C of E church - often these begin with C); in the church's 2nd register; and is entry # 465.]

One can also buy m.certs from the parish church where the marr took place, but only if it's in their currenr rego.
When a marr rego is full and has been checked against the registrar's copy, it is sent off to some archive - usually the county records office.
Some of these archives have online images of their older records - sometimes they manage the online stuff (e.g., Essex, Medway), and sometimes they're with Ancestry/FMP/FS.
Only FS is free:
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list#page=1®ion=UNITED_KINGDOM_IRELAND

Another way to trace families is via the census.

Northumberland & Co Durham are online for 1861 at:
http://www.freecen.org.uk/
They also have most of the Scottish counties on the earlier censuses.

Several sites have the English 1881 transcription for free, including FS who also have 1871 - their other years are not useful.

1861 Census
Piece: RG9/3838 Place: North Shields -Northumberland Enumeration District: 9
Civil Parish: Chirton Ecclesiastical Parish: -
Folio: 42 Page: 21 Schedule: 115
Address: Billy Mill Lane
Surname First name(s) Rel Status Sex Age Occupation Where Born Remarks
YOUNGER Ralph Head M M 30 Coal Miner Northumberland - Chirton
YOUNGER Margt Wife M F 25 Northumberland - North Shields
YOUNGER James Son - M 6 Scholar Northumberland - Chirton
Page: 42/22 YOUNGER Dorothy Dau - F 4 Scholar Northumberland - Chirton
YOUNGER Ralph Son - M 2 Northumberland - Chirton

1871 https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V5BX-J9L
1881 https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XQCG-53P

However, missing the 1891-1911 censuses would be a real drawback.
If you haven't bought a sub somewhere, many UK public libraries have Ancestry access, as do FS FHCentres - search for these from the FS home page.

Scotland is rather different. Their BMD records are more informative, and it's probably worth buying the older BMD certs.
A BMD cert that's 100/75/50 y old only costs 1.40GBP if you're careful, unlike the 9.25 GBP for an English one.
SP make the same charge for census and pre-1855 church register images.

Here's some example BMD look-ups on FS

1855 https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XY17-3LM
Indexing Project (Batch) Number C11168-1

1868 https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F7Q5-P31
Indexing Project (Batch) Number C11644-1

1855 https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XYQM-R3G
Indexing Project (Batch) Number M11562-1

The corrseponding example images are online via:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/Content/Help/index.aspx?r=554&408

Pre-1855, you'll need to look at Scottish Old Parish Registers.
There's an availability list of OPRs at:
http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/old-parish-registers/list-of-old-parish-registers

I've listed the batch #s for the FS hits.
If you know which civil parish the event occured in, then these are useful for searching on FS.
The format is C11pppn for CofS christenings and M11pppn for marrs/banns, where:
ppp is the parish # - e.g., 168 for Old Machar/Burgh of Aberdeen;
n is a (variable) time code - oldest first.
[1/3 are used only for GROS register entries 1855-1875.
A small rural parish might only use n=2 for all its pre-1855 stuff.
Most don't go beyond 2/4/5/6. Big cities are a bit exceptional - some need more than 9 batches, so fictious parishes were created for the overflow]

Here's a couple of examples from my tree, illustrating FS doesn't always discriminate between marrs & banns.
In each case, the marr was at the later date, in the bride's own parish, not the groom's.

Name Events Relationships
William Slessor
Scotland, Marriages, 1561-1910
marriage: 21 December 1820 Longside, Aberdeen, Scotland
spouse: Christian Slessor
William Slessor
Scotland, Marriages, 1561-1910
marriage: 23 December 1820 Old Deer, Aberdeen, Scotland
spouse: Christian Slessor

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XTNR-Y6N
Indexing Project (Batch) Number M11218-5
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XTJM-J3G
Indexing Project (Batch) Number M11228-5


Robert Slessor
Scotland, Marriages, 1561-1910
marriage: 14 December 1850 Cruden, Aberdeen, Scotland
spouse: Jane Arthur
Robert Slessor
Scotland, Marriages, 1561-1910
marriage: 19 December 1850 Ellon, Aberdeen, Scotland
spouse: Jane Arthur

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XTNF-Q4Z
Indexing Project (Batch) Number M11185-4
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XTNJ-T5W
Indexing Project (Batch) Number M11192-4


What appears in a parish rego can be quite variable - e.g.,

Name William Anderson
Spouse's Name Janet Reid
Event Date 16 Jun 1795
Event Place Saint Fergus,Banff,Scotland
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XTLS-B5N
Indexing Project (Batch) Number M11166-2

The actual entry reads:
OPR for St Fergus BAN
June 16th 1795 William Anderson Servt to
P Reid in Alehousehill and son of Wm Anderson
in Ednie was this day married to Janet Reid
Daughter to Jas Reid in Old Kirkton


There's an 1890s map for every Scottish county, showing parishes, at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/gazetteer/