Recent BMDs
I apologise for it being 2 weeks since the last article as I have been very busy! Anyway I've managed to find time to write this article.
You may have noticed that the birth, marriage and death indexes aren't fully up to date. Births go up to 2006, marriages to 2008 and deaths: 2007. This is because the GRO (General Register Office) stopped selling them to the genealogical sites, such as Ancestry and Find My Past etc. This could cause a bit of trouble for the family historians out there trying to keep there trees as up to date as possible.
However, these indexes are available to view on microfiche at:
The Library of Birmingham
Bridgend Local and Family History Centre
Manchester Central Library
Newcastle City Library
Plymouth Central Library
The British Library
However, depending on who you are and where you live, it can be very hard to get to these libraries - especially if you live halfway across the world! So there are a few alternative ways of going about keeping your tree up to date!
Firstly is to track the person (or people) you are looking for. This can be done using the electoral rolls - if you can find your person in 2015 there is a high chance they are still alive but have a look to see who they are living with - this may give you a clue as to if they have married since 2008.
Alternatively, you can search for them in the newspaper announcements as most newspapers will keep old announcements online from when they were published. Obviously not everybody will have an announcement in the newspaper so it can be hit and miss.
Also, have a look to see if they, or other family members, are on social media sites, such as Facebook etc., as this may give you some extra information. I would message people first, if possible, to confirm it is the right person before adding them. This may give you a wealth of up to date information.
Another way is to look for them in The Phone Book which although it doesn't contain everybody's phone number it may contain the person you are looking for. If you find them you can choose to either phone them up or write a letter (if the address is viewable).
Obviously, there are various ways you can go about trying to find a recent BMD and these aren't all of the possible alternative ways of finding one so if you have a possible way you would like to share feel free to comment below.
Published: 4 December 2015
You may have noticed that the birth, marriage and death indexes aren't fully up to date. Births go up to 2006, marriages to 2008 and deaths: 2007. This is because the GRO (General Register Office) stopped selling them to the genealogical sites, such as Ancestry and Find My Past etc. This could cause a bit of trouble for the family historians out there trying to keep there trees as up to date as possible.
However, these indexes are available to view on microfiche at:
The Library of Birmingham
Bridgend Local and Family History Centre
Manchester Central Library
Newcastle City Library
Plymouth Central Library
The British Library
However, depending on who you are and where you live, it can be very hard to get to these libraries - especially if you live halfway across the world! So there are a few alternative ways of going about keeping your tree up to date!
Firstly is to track the person (or people) you are looking for. This can be done using the electoral rolls - if you can find your person in 2015 there is a high chance they are still alive but have a look to see who they are living with - this may give you a clue as to if they have married since 2008.
Alternatively, you can search for them in the newspaper announcements as most newspapers will keep old announcements online from when they were published. Obviously not everybody will have an announcement in the newspaper so it can be hit and miss.
Also, have a look to see if they, or other family members, are on social media sites, such as Facebook etc., as this may give you some extra information. I would message people first, if possible, to confirm it is the right person before adding them. This may give you a wealth of up to date information.
Another way is to look for them in The Phone Book which although it doesn't contain everybody's phone number it may contain the person you are looking for. If you find them you can choose to either phone them up or write a letter (if the address is viewable).
Obviously, there are various ways you can go about trying to find a recent BMD and these aren't all of the possible alternative ways of finding one so if you have a possible way you would like to share feel free to comment below.
Published: 4 December 2015
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