Within each county the Register Offices hold the original records of recorded births, marriages and deaths. These records go back to the beginnings of the civil registration of all three life events starting in 1837. Prior to that date the official recordings were done by the church parishes. Having the civil records made the gathering of this information more uniform all across the country.

For each of the three areas (births-marriages-deaths) the registrations are marked in quarterly periods: Jan-March, April-June, July-Sept. and Oct.-Dec. for each year.

The numbers of BMD listed are astonishing. Just for the county of Lancashire there are over 7.1 million births, 3.7 million marriages and 3.4 million deaths.

The online site of FreeBMD is best for searching for any ancestors. They have transcribed the Civil Registration indexes of BMD for England and Wales, covering from 1837 to 1983. They have done over 256 million total records and continue to add to that number over the years.

Using the ‘Search’ button, click it so you can place a given name, approximate birth year and location. If you do not have the full names, such a mother’s maiden name, just place what information you do have. If you can narrow down a location, like Manchester in Lancashire County, you can just place a surname, if it is not a common name. Click the ‘find’ button to see what is available.

A listing of surnames with the given name, the district, such as Manchester and the quarter with the year will be listed. If there is the symbol of a drawn pair of reading glasses then there is also a scanned image of the record index, not the original individual record.

With marriage indexes it does not show who they married. However, if you had a possible maiden name and it matched for a person on the date quarter, location, volume and page, you may have a match. Having the district name, the volume and the page number is necessary to acquire from the United Kingdom National Archives a copy of the actual register record.

Keep focused on one elusive relative at a time. Put the time and effort into checking the birth-marriage-death indexes as well as other sources. Most ancestors from the last 170 plus years are noted in official records somewhere. Discovering even just a little additional information enriches the family tree and helps fill in those blanks on the pedigree chart.