Brian I have been in touch with the Coordinator of the Lancashire Family History & Heraldry Society (LFHHS) input into LancsBMD. He has seen your original message. This is his response: "The difference between the GRO Index and LancashireBMD could be due to an error by the transcriber. That said when we commenced the work there were no central guidelines so it was down to each Society to produce their own guidance notes. Manchester & Lancashire FHS commenced work first shortly followed by LFHHS. Our guidelines used the year of registration for births and deaths. However, we used year of birth rather than registration year for re-registrations of births as in some cases there was a difference of several years. I don't know what other societies did. The Wigan FHS covered the Wigan and Leigh District so I don't know if they used the year of birth or registration." Hope that helps. Maybe a call to the Wigan FHS may help. Regards David Burgess On 23/1/15 09:13, Brian Horridge via wrote: > Firstly, thanks to all who have replied so quickly. > > I had assumed that the LancsBMD indexes were based on the original books > and had not considered they may have re-used local indexes created by > the registrar for their local use. Also, that they were based on the > date of registration not the date of birth (a viewpoint biased by my > much greater experience of marriage registers where, in theory, the date > of event and date of registration is (or should be!!) the same). > > It would satisfy my curiosity to have confirmed the origins of LancsBMD > indexes but the upshot is the same in that we just need to be aware of > possible discrepancies between different "official" sources. > > Again, many thanks > > Brian > > > > On 22/01/2015 22:56, Paul Prescott wrote: >> Brian: >> >> The GRO indexes are indexes of birth registrations, not of births. So >> a birth that took place in, say, December but was not registered until >> January or February will appear in the following year's index. >> >> I don't know how the LancsBMD entries are indexed, but if they are >> indexed by the actual date of birth that would explain the apparent >> discrepancy. >> >> Paul >> >> >> >> >> >> On 22 January 2015 at 19:22, Brian Horridge via <goons@rootsweb.com> wrote: >>> I wonder if anyone can help with an oddity I've noticed several times >>> with the LancsBMD indexes. >>> >>> One of the many tasks I'm undertaking is building family trees using >>> both the GRO indexes and the LancsBMD indexes and therefore >>> cross-referencing these 2 indexes. In majority of cases, I can match >>> LancsBMD entries with the GRO index but I have noticed quite a few where >>> the LancsBMD entry is a year earlier than the equivalent GRO index. I'm >>> fairly confident they are about the same person due to an non-common >>> forename and Registration District. >>> >>> I understand the LancsBMD entries are taken from the Registrar's >>> original registers and the GRO indexes are based on the Registrar's >>> quarterly returns so I would have expected them to be the same. >>> >>> One specific example is a Martha Horridge born 1875 (Lancs BMD - >>> registers at Wigan & Leigh) or Q1 1876 Wigan RD(FBMD/GRO). >>> >>> If it was just one or two entries, I could accept they were late >>> submissions / transcription errors but there have been so many that they >>> made me notice them. >>> >>> I am in no way criticising the excellent effort made by the volunteers >>> who have done all the effort - I am just trying to understand why there >>> may be a discrepancy. >>> >>> Many thanks >>> >>> Brian Horridge >>> >>> _____________________________________________ >>> >>> RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > -- David Burgess

David Thank you very much for taking the effort. Although it does not specifically resolve the example I quoted, it does set the background to these very useful databases. Brian On 23/01/2015 11:14, David Burgess via wrote: > Brian > > I have been in touch with the Coordinator of the Lancashire Family > History & Heraldry Society (LFHHS) input into LancsBMD. He has seen > your original message. > > This is his response: > "The difference between the GRO Index and LancashireBMD could be due to > an error by the transcriber. > > That said when we commenced the work there were no central guidelines so > it was down to each Society to produce their own guidance notes. > Manchester & Lancashire FHS commenced work first shortly followed by > LFHHS. Our guidelines used the year of registration for births and > deaths. However, we used year of birth rather than registration year for > re-registrations of births as in some cases there was a difference of > several years. I don't know what other societies did. The Wigan FHS > covered the Wigan and Leigh District so I don't know if they used the > year of birth or registration." > > Hope that helps. Maybe a call to the Wigan FHS may help. > > Regards > > David Burgess > > > On 23/1/15 09:13, Brian Horridge via wrote: >> Firstly, thanks to all who have replied so quickly. >> >> I had assumed that the LancsBMD indexes were based on the original books >> and had not considered they may have re-used local indexes created by >> the registrar for their local use. Also, that they were based on the >> date of registration not the date of birth (a viewpoint biased by my >> much greater experience of marriage registers where, in theory, the date >> of event and date of registration is (or should be!!) the same). >> >> It would satisfy my curiosity to have confirmed the origins of LancsBMD >> indexes but the upshot is the same in that we just need to be aware of >> possible discrepancies between different "official" sources. >> >> Again, many thanks >> >> Brian >> >> >> >> On 22/01/2015 22:56, Paul Prescott wrote: >>> Brian: >>> >>> The GRO indexes are indexes of birth registrations, not of births. So >>> a birth that took place in, say, December but was not registered until >>> January or February will appear in the following year's index. >>> >>> I don't know how the LancsBMD entries are indexed, but if they are >>> indexed by the actual date of birth that would explain the apparent >>> discrepancy. >>> >>> Paul >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On 22 January 2015 at 19:22, Brian Horridge via <goons@rootsweb.com> wrote: >>>> I wonder if anyone can help with an oddity I've noticed several times >>>> with the LancsBMD indexes. >>>> >>>> One of the many tasks I'm undertaking is building family trees using >>>> both the GRO indexes and the LancsBMD indexes and therefore >>>> cross-referencing these 2 indexes. In majority of cases, I can match >>>> LancsBMD entries with the GRO index but I have noticed quite a few where >>>> the LancsBMD entry is a year earlier than the equivalent GRO index. I'm >>>> fairly confident they are about the same person due to an non-common >>>> forename and Registration District. >>>> >>>> I understand the LancsBMD entries are taken from the Registrar's >>>> original registers and the GRO indexes are based on the Registrar's >>>> quarterly returns so I would have expected them to be the same. >>>> >>>> One specific example is a Martha Horridge born 1875 (Lancs BMD - >>>> registers at Wigan & Leigh) or Q1 1876 Wigan RD(FBMD/GRO). >>>> >>>> If it was just one or two entries, I could accept they were late >>>> submissions / transcription errors but there have been so many that they >>>> made me notice them. >>>> >>>> I am in no way criticising the excellent effort made by the volunteers >>>> who have done all the effort - I am just trying to understand why there >>>> may be a discrepancy. >>>> >>>> Many thanks >>>> >>>> Brian Horridge >>>> >>>> _____________________________________________ >>>> >>>> RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ >>>> >>>> ------------------------------- >>>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> _____________________________________________ >> >> RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >>