British Birth, Marriage and Death Registrations

 

Blogs

 

 

From time to time I will be adding items to these pages giving details of how to achieve certain objectives usually related to genealogy and the use of Legacy software often in conjunction with other software.

 

I am not suggesting that the solutions offered are the only, or indeed the best, options to solving problems but simply that they are ways which I have found to work.

 

  1. Using Legacy Search
  2. Create an Ancestry Book
  3. Transparency with The Gimp
  4. History of British Prime Ministers - Timeline
  5. Search Events, Locations and Married Names
  6. The Murder of Adam Mather
  7. British Civil Registration
  8. Improve Photo Colour Balance
  9. Web Safe Colours
  10. Create Legacy Web Pages - Part 1
  11. Create Legacy Web Pages - Part 2
  12. Create Legacy Web Pages - Part 3
  13. Protect Your PC
  14. Open Legacy files with Open Office
  15. FamGenContacts Database
  16. Insert Pictures into Web Pages

 

The icons below are links to any other software mentioned.

 

Legacy

 

PSPad

 

Open Office

 

The Gimp

 

Xara 3D

 

Valid HTML 4.01!

Timeline - British BMD Registration

No. From To Subject Detail
1 1538   Parish Registration Official parish registration introduced. Loose sheets of paper were used most of which have not survived
2 1551 1854 Scotland Parish Registration Parish registration introduced in Scotland for births and marriages
3 1597   Bound Registers By an Act of Parliament, bound registers were made mandatory for baptisms, marriages and burials. Duplicate sets had to be lodged with the bishops each year (Bishops' Transcripts)
4 1653 1660 Elected Parish Register Registration transferred to an elected Parish Register (Registrar)
5 1660   Restoration of church registration End of the Interregnum and responsibility for compiling and maintaining registers returned to the previous system
6 1753   Hardwike's Marriage Act Specified that couples had to marry in a parish in which one of them lived; banns had to be called or a license issued in advance. Marriages had to take place in a licensed building which was invariably Church of England except for Jews and Quakers. Non-conformists and Roman Catholics had to register with their parish church. Effective 1754
7 1812   Rose's Act Standardised the format of registers into three separate books for baptisms, marriages and deaths. Effective 1 January 1813
8 1837   Civil Registration A voluntary system of civil registration introduced and marriages could take place at a registrar's office. Effective 1 July 1837
9 1845 1922 Ireland Civil registration Civil registration of non Roman Catholic marriages introduced
10 1854   Scotland Civil Registration Act of Parliament passed enabling civil registration. This Act made registration compulsory and also abolished the previous Scottish system. Initially contained details of birth places and previous marriages but these were quickly dropped, although birth places were re-introduced in 1972. Effective 1 January 1855
11 1864 1922 Ireland Civil Registration Registration of all births marriages and deaths introduced
12 1866   Amendment to death details Age at death to be included in the death registers. Effective March 1866
13 1874   Amendment to birth and death registration Registration of births and Deaths made mandatory
14 1911   Amendment to birth details Mother's maiden name added to birth indexes. Effective September 1911
15 1912   Amendment to Spouse's Surname Spouse's surname added to the index of registrations. Effective March 1912
16 1922   Separation of Ireland Following the creation of the Republic of Ireland, the Nothern Ireland and Southern Ireland records were separately compiled.
17 1927   Still births and adoptions Registration of still births and adoptions introduced
18 1929   Marriage age Minimum age for marriage increased to 16 years
19 1969   Amendment to death details Date of birth added to death certificates (if known)
20 2005   Civil Partnerships Recognition and registration of Civil Partnerships introduced

Franchise Changes 1884 to 2006

No. From To Subject Detail
1 1884 1918 3rd Reform Act Extended Franchise to most men over 21 years of age. Domestic Residence qualifcation of 12 months
2 1918 1928 Representation of the People Act Extended Franchise to most women over 30 years of age. Domestic Residence qualifcation reduced to 6 months
3 1928 1969 Equal Franchise Act Extended Franchise to most women over 21 years of age.
4 1969   Voting Age Extended Franchise to most men and women over 18 years of age.

Except where otherwise stated the timeline relates to England and Wales. In general where a "To Date" is not given the Act has not been repealed.

 

BMDs: It is hoped that if, like me, you regularly need to check when various changes were made in the recording of BMDs the timeline will prove a ready reference. It should be noted that before civil registration became compulsory records were often incomplete; indeed at a census in 1801 of 850 Scottish parishes only 99 compiled registers regularly. Many of the Irish records were destroyed by fire in 1922.

 

Franchise: Even in 1884 less than 30% of adults were entitled to vote. Prior to then the right to vote included various factors eg. where one lived, income, rates (local taxes) paid and the value of domestic/business hereditaments.

The BMD Timeline, formatted for Legacy ® Family Tree may be downloaded from

here

then "save as" a ".txt" file to ~ \Legacy\Timelines\English

 

Corrections, comments and suggestions are welcome, so please use the contact facility below.

Email Send your comments to Ron Ferguson
The above information is given without warranty either expressed or implied
This page last updated January 2007
© Ronald Ferguson 2006 - 2008