Getting started

5. Order certificates

You will soon discover that it's not always possible to be certain that an entry in the indexes is the person that you are looking for. If you have a common name, for instance, you may be faced with up to 10 entries with the same name for a single quarter of a year. Some may have the same registration district. You will also soon realise that the amount of information in the indexes, whilst useful, is limited. Until 1969 there are no dates of birth in indexes, or full names.

The birth, marriage and death indexes are, in essence, a finding aid to enable you to order certficates for the events. These certificates are a genealogist's main tool in extending their family tree.

Certificates are a treasure trove of information about your ancestors.

Birth certificates can tell you:

• when and where a person was born
• their father’s name (where acknowledged). Illegitimate births will not state the father’s name
• mother's name
• father's occupation

Marriage certificates can tell you:

• the date that the marriage took place
• the bride and groom's full names
• their ages (note: age given is as stated by bride/groom, view with caution)
• condition at marriage, i.e. widowed, divorced, single
• their profession
• their residence
• the bride and groom's fathers' name. If the father's name is followed by 'deceased', search backwards from the date of marriage to find a death certificate for him.
• the bride and groom's fathers' occupation
• names of witnesses - often family members

Death certificates can tell you:

• when and where a person died
• their age
• their occupation
• the cause of death
• details of the informant (often a family member)

Findmypast provides a link to the General Register Office website where you can order certificates. Once you've found the record that you're looking for click on the 'order certificates' link at the top right hand corner of the page, next to 'help'.

This will take you to the page where you can find further details on ordering and pricing of certificates from the GRO. Once there simply fill in the information for the certificate that you wish to order from the entry on findmypast. You will not need anything other than what appears in the birth, marriage and death index to obtain a certificate.

Additional information, such as father's name or mother's maiden name, if known, can be used when ordering a certificate to ensure that it is the correct person.