Hi, Just a query - On Free BMD I thought if a marriage, birth or death can't be found on there then the marriage didn't occur or the birth or death wasn't registered. I thought it was a comprehensive record. Am I wrong? How is it that Find My Past has different records? Do they get their information from somewhere different? Thanks, Diana (confused from Romford)

No, FreeBMD is not yet complete. On the front page there is a link to graphs showing you how they are doing. The older the record you are looking for the better chance you have of finding it. Even if you go to the GRO site it does not guarantee that you will find all events since 1837 as mistakes were made or records lost, and in the early days people just did not register as they were supposed to. And even if an event was registered it still may be hard to find. One of my TAYLOR marriages is recorded at GRO as TAYTOR and I only found it through the wife's surname, which I got off a birth certificate. The information comes from the same source, GRO, but perhaps Find my Past have completed their transcription whereas FreeBMD haven't. Hope that helps Steve Dianadiluca@aol.com wrote: > Hi, > > Just a query - On Free BMD I thought if a marriage, birth or death can't be > found on there then the marriage didn't occur or the birth or death wasn't > registered. I thought it was a comprehensive record. Am I wrong? How is it > that Find My Past has different records? Do they get their information from > somewhere different? > > Thanks, > > Diana (confused from Romford) > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Any problems, please contact the List Admin: Essex-UK-admin@rootsweb.com > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ESSEX-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >

Just thought I would add another reason why you may not find an event recorded in the GRO. Civil registration was brought in during the latter half of 1837 and at first was not compulsory, so another reason you may not find an event recorded. It was not made compulsory until the law was changed to make it so in 1874. When it was first introduced (1837) the registrar would travel around visiting areas so that people could register an event. After the new Act of 1874, the onus was then on the person to report the event by visiting the registrar office themselves. Best regards Heather Visit my Family Tree's at GOODWIN and GORDON http://heatherac.tribalpages.com CARBIS SPARROW ATTWOOLL http://carbissparrow.tribalpages.com JOLLIFFE MOULAND http://jolliffemouland.tribalpages.com/ --- On Tue, 30/12/08, Steve <steveshistory2@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > > Even if you go to the GRO site it does not guarantee that > you will find > all events since 1837 as mistakes were made or records > lost, and in the > early days people just did not register as they were > supposed to.

Dianadiluca@aol.com wrote: > Hi, > > Just a query - On Free BMD I thought if a marriage, birth or death can't be > found on there then the marriage didn't occur or the birth or death wasn't > registered. I thought it was a comprehensive record. Am I wrong? How is it > that Find My Past has different records? Do they get their information from > somewhere different? FreeBMD and Findmypast use exactly the same source: the GRO indexes. FreeBMD is a volunteer project and not all the indexes have been fully transcribed as yet. However, the GRO indexes themselves are not complete. If a marriage can't be found on either FreeBMD or Findmypast then it either didn't happen or it has been missed out of the GRO index. If a birth can't be found on either then either it wasn't registered or it has been missed out of the GRO index. Likewise with a death but a burial wasn't supposed to take place without a death certificate, although there are many occurences of burials taking place without it. See Mike Foster's book "Comedy of Errors" for further information about the missing entries.