|
For births & deaths, the original entry is made in the appropriate subdistrict office.
At the end of each quarter, the subdistrict registrars made a copy of all that quarters entries for the GRO. These were done on special double sized forms in the early days, so the early GRO regos have 10 Bs & Ds and 4 Ms per page, whereas the original local regos only had half that. Later on, the GRO had 5 B & D entries and 2 M entries per page. The subdistrict registrars took their copies, along with the relevant regos, to the district superintendent for him to check over. He kept any completed rego books, and returned the incomplete current regos. When the superintendent had gotten bundles of copies from all his subdistricts, he stacked them together, and shipped them off to the GRO where they were bound into volumes, alongside of surrounding districts, and indexed.
Marrs are similar, except there's no subdistricts there. The subdistricts are replaced by the authorized holders of the church regos (i.e., the vicar or rabbi, etc.). They make copies, and submit them to the superintendent - their completed regos are deposited in some archive, usually the county records office (e.g., SEAX is the online site for Essex Record Office). The superintendent has a local copy made in a local duplicate rego of the church's. The superintendent already holds his own marr rego. This is used for rego office marrs, and for church marrs where the church isn't authorized to hold an official marr rego, so some asst registrar has to attend so the couple can sign his official marr rego (e.g., RCs until the 1980s). A copy of the quarter's marrs in this rego was also made for the GRO, again on their special forms.
I think all these copies were handwritten.
Nowadays, when I send off to the GRO for a cert, they put an image of their copy of the entry on the cert. Obviously, they didn't do this in the past - I've got a 1960s typewritten copy of my b.cert from the GRO. Most local offices don't have the technology to do this yet, so they make a copy for each request. Some do now send the original image from the rego, e.g., Birmingham RD. (Also SP imaged the local regos, so old Scottish certs (well uncertified copies, technically) contain images of the informant's signature - sim Eire & NI supply uncertified imges of their regos.) The church marr rego's hold the original signatures of the couple and their officicant, witnesses, etc., so jax can get these via SEAX - they're also coming online via Ancestry, FS, & FMP/GR.
As a useful footnote to jax's spendthrift ways, anyone can order a cert thru Ancestry, not just subscribers. So, I can do a search, and click on the shopping basket and see the details of the order - although I don't see paying 10+ quid just for them to place my order for me. FreeBMD has no completed transcriptions of any quarter after 1970 right now, so for searching untranscribed stuff up to 1983, I can search on Ancestry, get key details - like spelling and date, and then use FreeBMD's klunky interface to "view images" of the printed index (and so read spouse/mother surnames and dob/age at death).
|
|
I've had an assortment of formats from GRO - some appear to be copies of the actual register pasted onto the proforma, some look like they've been taken from handwritten reproductions of the original and some have been typed up versions.
|
|
All the certs I have ordered have been hand written...births and marriages and not copies of the orginals
When I 1st started out I foolishly ordered my grandparents marriage cert from ancestry for approx. £20 with no trace of their handwriting.
A couple of months ago the area of Essex they married in became available on (Seax) so for £5 for 24 hours I managed to get a copy of their marriage plus my other grandparents all with their signatures
|
|
It may be the original was too faint or badly written to be copied so they typed out a copy for you
|
|
I have a general question. I have just received a (birth - 1845) cert from GRO and it is in typed format - I am used to receiving certs in handwritten format, as this is how the information on all the other certs I have purchased from the GRO appear - they look like photocopied sections from a register.
I do have one other typed cert - which I purchased from a local RO, I believe it has a 'typo' which I can live with but decided to always use GRO in future.
Just wondered if anyone knew why this might be so?
J-A
|
