Nature of Source
Introduction to Civil Registration
The introduction of civil registration of deaths in England and Wales followed the Births and Deaths Registration Act of 1836, which came into effect on 1 July 1837. From this date, all births, marriages and deaths were required to be reported to the register office in the district where the event took place. The original registration districts were usually based on the poor law union areas, each overseen by a Superintendent Registrar. Over time, the districts were adjusted to correspond with local authority administrative areas.
Understanding the National Indexes
National indexes were created from entries submitted quarterly to the General Register Office (GRO) in London. These indexed entries were copied from the registers held by local registry offices. The copying process sometimes led to transcription errors and also be aware that civil registration certificates may contain inaccuracies or deliberate falsehoods. From 1911 onwards, the indexes only included the initial of a person’s middle name rather than the full name. Starting 1 April 1969, death index entries began listing the exact date of birth of the deceased.
For a detailed explanation of the area and volume codes used in the indexes and their corresponding registration districts consult the GENUKI website. Note that Roman numerals were used for index reference codes from 1837 to 1851, while Arabic numerals and letters were used from 1852 to 1946.
Evolution of Index Formats
- 1837-1865: Handwritten indexes on vellum, often difficult to read.
- 1866 Onwards: Printed indexes introduced.
- 1984: Annual indexes replaced quarterly ones.
- 1984: Digital indexes replaced paper versions.
Indexes can be searched online at the GRO website and subsequently copies of certificates are available in a variety of formats including paper certificates, PDFs and instant images.
Post-1875 Registration Changes
After 1875 registration was enforced more rigorously with fines imposed for non-registration, although unlike birth, most deaths were registered. The age of the deceased on certificate is often approximate and a burial could take place before the death was registered. From 1875 official medical certificates certified by a doctor stating the cause of death were introduced. Before this reform, the cause of death was often supplied by the informant who might have had little or no medical knowledge. On earlier certificates the cause of death might be stated as ‘visitation of god’. The term was used as a way of explaining death by an unknown cause which is now understood as ‘natural causes’.
Registration by Qualified Informants
Deaths are registered with the local registrar by a qualified informant, who can be:
- A relative of the deceased.
- Someone present at the death or in attendance.
- The occupier of the house, nursing home or establishment where the death occurred.
- The person arranging the funeral with the funeral director.
Civil Registration in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man
Civil registration began in the Channel Islands in the 1840s. In the Isle of Man, births and deaths have been recorded since 1878 and marriages since 1884.
Local and Online Resources
If an entry is missing from the national index, check with the local Register Office as they compiled their own indexes from their original records. Some of these registers have been deposited at the local archives and many are available online. The UK BMD website provides links to local transcriptions of UK births, marriages, deaths, parish registers and census returns. Users can also perform multi-region searches at UKBMD website.
Additional Sources of Information
In cases where an inquest was held into a death, the coroner’s findings might be reported in local or even national newspapers. For further details, refer to Coroner & Inquest Records. Local newspapers can also be valuable for obituaries, funeral, and death notices. Memorial cards, also known as ‘funeral cards’, ‘mortuary cards’ and ‘remembrance cards,’ can be a useful addition to other sources of death information. They became popular in the 19th century and were sent out giving details of a death and funeral arrangements.
See also
Cemetery & Crematoria Records
Civil Registration – Birth, Marriages & Deaths At Sea
Civil Registration, Birth
Civil Registration, Marriage
Consular and Overseas Records of Births/Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths/Burials
Monumental Inscriptions
Parish Registers-Burials
Where Found
General Register Office for England and Wales
The General Register Office holds records covering England and Wales of births, deaths, marriages registered from July 1837 as well as civil partnerships, stillbirths and adoptions. Full Certificates of birth marriage and death are available to order. Historic birth and death indexes can be searched online at the GRO website.
County Record Offices
The local archives hold historic registers for births, marriages and death for events registered at the local register office covering the county. Find the details of a local UK archive from a searchable list of over 2,500 archives hosted by The National Archives.
Period Covered
1837 – Onwards
Genealogical Value
Index
- Full name.
- Age (from 1866).
- Birthdate (from 1st April 1969).
- Registration District, Volume and Page.
Certificate
- Date of death and address where died.
- Full name and age from 1866.
- Occupation and cause of death.
- Date of birth from 1969.
- Name and residence of informant.
- Date registered.
Further References
- Annal, David. Using Birth, Marriage and Death Records: Public Record Office, 2002
- Annal, David & Collins, Audrey. Birth, Marriage and Death Records: A Guide for Family Historians: Pen & Sword Books, 2012
- Cohen, Deborah, Family Secrets: Living with Shame from the Victorians to the Present Day: Viking, 2013
- Foster, Michael Whitfield. A Comedy of Errors, or, The Marriage Records of England and Wales, 1837-1899: Mike Foster, 1998
- Foster, Michael Whitfield. A Comedy of Errors. Act 2: Mike Foster, 2002
- General Register Office, Abstract of Arrangements Respecting Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths in the United Kingdom and other Countries of the British Commonwealth and in the Republic of Ireland: HMSO, 1952
- Gibson, Jeremy & Hampson, Elizabeth. Marriage, Census and Other Indexes for Family Historians. 5th ed: FFHS, 1994
- Gibson, Jeremy; Hampson, Elizabeth; Raymond, Stuart. Marriage Indexes for Family Historians. 9th rev. ed.: The Family History Partnership, 2007
- Grundy, Joan. A Dictionary of Medical & Related Terms for the Family Historian: Swansong Publications, 2006
- Heritage, Celia. Tracing Your Ancestors through Death Records: A Guide for Family Historians: Pen and Sword Books, 2015
- Higgs, Edward. Life, Death And Statistics: Civil Registration, Censuses And The Work Of The General Register Office, 1836-1952: Local Population Studies, 2004
- Langston, Brett. A Handbook to the Civil Registration Districts of England and Wales: Family History Partnership, 2003
- Meller, Hugh. London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer: Sutton Publishing, 2000
- Philpot, Terry. 31 London Cemeteries: To Visit Before You Die: Step Beach Press, 2013
- Raymond, Stuart. Births, Marriage & Deaths on the Web: Southern England, The Marches and Wales. Vol 1: Family History Partnership, 2005
- Raymond, Stuart. Births, Marriage & Deaths on the Web: Midlands, Northern England and East Anglia. Vol 2: Family History Partnership, 2005
- Thomas, Amanda. The Lambeth Cholera Outbreak of 1848-1849: McFarland and Co, 2009 (includes references to and indexes of individual cases)
- Wiggins, Ray. Registration Districts: An Alphabetical List of Over 650 Districts: Society of Genealogists, 2001
- Wills, Simon. How Our Ancestors Died: A Guide for Family Historians: Pen & Sword, 2013
- Wood, Tom. An Introduction to British Civil Registration. 2nd ed: FFHS, 2001
Websites
GOV.UK
General Register Office. This official government guide explains how to find and order death certificates for family history research in England and Wales. It’s written specifically for family historians and includes searching free indexes, what information is on a death certificate and how to find and order a death certificate.
GOV.UK
Research your family history using the General Register Office. The is about how to use the General Register Office for researching your family tree and family history, including certificates, what information they contain and what to do if you cannot find a record in the public index.
GOV.UK
Events recorded in England, Wales and overseas. This is a list of the types of events that are recorded in England, Wales and overseas for which the General Register Office holds records. It also gives the dates for which the records are held.
General Register Office
Discover your family history. The booklet describes how the GRO can help you research your family tree and family history.
General Register Office
Guides to researching your family tree
GRO guides to birth certificates, marriage certificates and death certificates.
General Register Office
Guides to help you carry out your family history research.
The National Archives Media
Early civil registration, by Audrey Collins
GENUKI
England Civil Registration. This GENUKI page is a comprehensive guide to civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths in England and Wales. It explains the system that replaced (or supplemented) church parish registers for family history research.
GENUKI
GRO Indexes Registration Districts. The three following lists provide the reference numbers of the registration districts for births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales.
UKBMD
Registration Districts in England and Wales. The webpage provides a listing county-by-county of civil registration districts in England since 1837 to the present and in Wales between 1837 and 1996. The entries show the areas covered by each district and the administrative changes overtime. The same districts were also used to compile the census for the years 1851 to 1911. The site also links to an alphabetical listing of all the registration districts.
UKBMD
Index of Places in England and Wales. For each place listed, this index shows the county and registration district in which it was situated between 1837 and 1974, at which latter date the districts were considerably altered.
FreeBMD
Registration District Information. These pages contain information about each County and Registration District in the database, showing the duration of each District, and the county/ies within which it fell. There is everything from detailed county and district listings, right down to how many records the database holds for every year for an individual registration district.
Information about registration districts with a list of official districts.
Society of Genealogists
How to search for Birth, Marriage and Death certificates. Discover our in-depth guide to Birth, Marriage and Death certificates.
Ancestry Solutions
Civil Registration. Guide to content, commencement date, indexes and how to obtain civil birth, marriage and death certificates.
Findmypast
A beginner’s guide to using birth, marriage and death records for family history. Often the key to growing your family tree, here’s everything you need to know about vital life event records.
FamilySearch
England Jurisdictions 1851 Map. The interactive historical map is focused on England in the year 1851. It shows the administrative and ecclesiastical boundaries (jurisdictions) as they existed at that time. The map helps locate exactly where an ancestor lived in 1851 and understand which parish, county, poor law union, registration district, or probate court had jurisdiction over a specific place. The map also helps users figure out where to search for records such as church baptisms, marriages, burials, or civil records, since record-keeping was often tied to these historical boundaries rather than modern ones.
Wishful Thinking
A Historical Account of the Development of Local Registration Offices in England and Wales, by Rosemary Lockie.
Death Related Resources
St George’s, University of London
Archives and Special Collections. The Post Mortem Project. The Post Mortems as a Genealogical Resource, by Natasha Shillingford.
London Historic Parks & Gardens Trust
Online access to information on cemeteries and burial grounds as well as churchyards across the whole of London covering Church of England, Jewish, Roman Catholic, Quaker and other denominations.
Victorian Web
Public Health in Nineteenth Century Britain. The site provides a comprehensive overview of health, nutrition and medicine during the Victorian era.
Craig Thornber
Glossary of Medical Terms Used in the 18th and 19th Centuries.
CSI: Dixie
The Graveyard of Old Diseases, by Stephen Berry and Tracy L. Barnett. Glossary and descriptions of old diseases.
Herbal History Research Network
Rudy’s List of Archaic Medical Terms
CAGenWeb
List of Archaic Medical Terms for Diseases and Ailments.
Hall Genealogy Website
Some Illnesses found in Genealogy.
Access Genealogy
Old Medical Terms and Diseases. List of medical terms and diseases that appear on historic documents.
Wellcome Library: London’s Pulse
Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972. The website allows you to search more than 5500 Medical Officer of Health reports from the Greater London area. The site also has a Health of London timeline.
The London Burial Grounds
Index to burial grounds. Index and list of London burial grounds and cemeteries listed under the parish in which they are located.
Derelict London
Cemeteries, Churches, Chapels and Halls. Collection of photos and notes on disused or derelict burial grounds and religious buildings in London.
GenDocs
Victorian London Cemeteries. Listing of the principal Victorian London cemeteries with the date of its first register for covering Non-Denominational Cemeteries, Roman Catholic Cemeteries, Jewish Cemeteries. Army Cemetery, Navy Cemetery, Moravian Burial Ground
MyHeritage Blog
How to Write an Obituary, by Talya. Guide to summarising an entire life in a few paragraphs and how to write something that will honour the memory of a loved one.
OVS-Genealogy
Birthdate Calculator. Calculate birth date from death date and age on tombstones and death certificates.
Ancestors at Rest
Funeral Cards and Memorial Cards Database. The site offers an informative resource on the significance of funeral cards in genealogy and includes a comprehensive database of funeral and memorial cards.
Legacy Tree Genealogists
Finding Funeral Home Records for Your Ancestors.
Online Databases
National GRO Coverage
FreeBMD
Search free to view transcribed civil registration indexes of births, marriages and deaths from 1837 for England and Wales. Free access to the records is also available via ancestry.co.uk covering the years only from 1837-1915. The project is a volunteer led with records added daily and part of the Free UK Genealogy organisation.
General Register Office for England and Wales
Search the GRO historic birth and death indexes and order certificates online. These are birth records from 1837 to 1934 and from 1984 to 2023 and death records from 1837 to 1957 and from 1984 to 2023. Please note that the age at death is shown on all the GRO online death indexes from 1837 onwards. Marriages have not yet been digitised. Customers must have a registered GRO online certificate ordering account to use the service. Access death certificate images instantly covering 1837 to 1957 and birth certificate images instantly covering 1837 to 1922 at a cost of £2.50 each.
Findmypast
England & Wales Deaths 1837-2007. Search the General Register Office death indexes as well as certain registrations overseas covering England and Wales. Each record comprises a transcript of the original register and are fully indexed by name.
Findmypast
United Kingdom Deaths, 2007-2020. Search for individuals whose deaths were registered in England and Wales between 2007 and 2020. Note that information found here has been compiled from sources other than the GRO.
Ancestry
England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1837-1915. This database is a searchable and browsable digitized version of the indices of civil death registrations in England and Wales, reported quarterly to the General Register Office in London. This database is made available to Ancestry users courtesy of the volunteers of the FreeBMD organization)
Ancestry
England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007. This database is a searchable and browsable digitized version of the indices of civil death registrations in England and Wales, reported quarterly to the General Register Office in London. Images are only available through 1983.
Ancestry
England and Wales, Death Index, 1989-2024. This collection is a compiled index that covers approximately 55 per cent of the total deaths that occurred in this time period compiled by Wilmington Millennium, West Yorkshire.
Ancestry
UK, Death Notices, 1980-2022. This collection contains an index of information taken from death notices, funeral notices, obituaries, and memoriams published in the United Kingdom.
MyHeritage
MyHeritage offers an index of civil birth registrations for England and Wales from 1837 to 2005; civil marriage registrations from 1837 to 2005; civil death registrations for England and Wales from 1837 to 2005.
The Genealogist
BMD Records 1837-2005: Complete Birth, Marriage & Death records index for England and Wales as published by the GRO. The indexes are searchable in database format from 1837-2005 for Marriages with the facility to match and cross-reference one name with another surname, 1837-2005 for Births and 1950-2005 for Deaths.
FamilySearch
England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007.Index to births registered in England and Wales beginning 1 July 1837 through 2007.
Ancestry
UK and Ireland, Obituary Index, 2004-current. The collection contains obituaries from hundreds of newspapers and cemeteries and funeral homes.
Findmypast
England, Newspaper Death Notices. Search over 1.8 million death notices across England published in English newspapers. The index provides a link to the actual newspaper notice.
BMD Registers
BMD Registers. Records of birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial taken from non-parish sources including Overseas Records.
Society of Genealogists
Members access to digital resources and indexes including the Memorial Card Collection which dates from the late 19th century and include details of the deceased, such as name, age, date of death, and the name of the burial ground.
Local Coverage
UKBMD
The volunteer led site provides links to websites that offer on-line transcriptions of GRO and local births, marriages and deaths indexes as well as censuses returns. A wide range of other indexes and transcriptions are also available for most counties. These may include parish records, wills and monumental inscriptions. The site hosts the Online Parish Clerks project which contains transcribed parish registers and other parish records.
Gloucestershire BMD Indexes
The aim of the project is to index all the registers held by the Gloucestershire Registration Service. All births registered in the county between 1837 and at least 1912 have been indexed; All deaths registered in Gloucestershire between 1837 and at least 1900 have been indexed and all marriage registers stored by GRS at Gloucestershire Archives have been indexed. The indexing is carried out by volunteers from the Gloucestershire Family History Society in conjunction with the Gloucestershire Registration Service and Gloucestershire Archives.
Findmypast
Derbyshire Registrar’s Birth, Marriage and Death Index
Lancashire BMD
Online access to the birth, marriage and death indexes held by the local registration services developed in partnership with the county’s Family History Societies. See website for date coverage and registration districts covered.
CAMDEX
Index of Births, Marriages, Civil Partnerships and Deaths in Cambridgeshire since 1837 in association with the Cambridgeshire Family History Society and Cambridgeshire County Council. The index is available to review by members of the public free of charge: copies of BMD certificates can be ordered and paid for on-line from the CCC Registration Service.
Online Genealogical Index
The site locates and lists available free and paid for family history records covering a particular county, town or village covering England, Wales and the Isle of Man. The site is particularly useful for locating birth, baptism, marriage, death, burial and cemetery records as well as monumental inscriptions, school records, war memorials and family pedigrees.
Ancestry
Staffordshire, England, Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes, 1837-2017. This collection comprises indexes of civil registrations from Staffordshire local civil registrar offices, excluding the City of Stoke-on-Trent
Calderdale Council
Indexed birth, marriage and death notices for the entire period of the Halifax Guardian’s existence from December 1832 to April 1921
The Dorset Death Certificate Index
The site covers deaths registered in the county of Dorset from 1837 onwards. The certificates transcribed for this site have been made available by other family historians. The advanced search facility allows searching for occupations, places, causes of death, and for details of doctors, coroners and ‘informants’.
Cornwall OPC Database
Search birth, marriage and death certificate transcripts
Pickard’s Pink Pages for Warwickshire
Warwickshire newspaper extracts covering births, marriages and deaths.
Funeral Notices
Search over 5 million funeral notices, deaths, obituaries and memoriams.
Legacy
Search for obituaries from more than 1,500 newspapers and 3,500 funeral homes across the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Europe.
Ancestry
Andrews Newspaper Index Cards, 1790-1976. The index which is kept by the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies features a collection of notices from newspapers and various official sources including announcements of births, marriages, obituaries, and deaths abroad; notices of wills, unclaimed estates and advertisements for missing persons and people seeking next of kin.
Ancestry
Post Mortem Examinations and Case Books, 1840-1920. This collection is an index to post-mortem examination records and case books produced at St. George’s Hospital and Medical School in London, England. The records contain personal information about the deceased patient and notes written by the attending doctor.
CD Roms
S & N Genealogy Supplies
Indexes to Overseas BMDs, 1916-1940
Lancashire Family History and Heraldry Society
Andrew Todd’s map of Lancashire 1851 showing the Registration Districts of Births, Marriages & Deaths, Registration Sub-Districts, Parishes, Townships and all Anglican churches and dates of their earliest registers
