The genealogical documentation referring to a person's birth in England will depend on the year that they were born. An ancestor who was born from 1st July 1837 to the present day will have a birth certificate which can be ordered from the General Register Office. This contains standardised information including their date and place of birth. Prior to this date, a person may be found in a baptism register. This gives a date of baptism but usually not a date of birth. Other documentation can be used to discover more about an ancestor's birth in England including newspaper cuttings, memorial inscriptions, passports, baptismal certificates, military records, educational records and occupational records amongst many others.
Birth certificatesBirth certificates
Birth certificates for births that occured within England from 1st July 1837 onwards can be ordered from the General Register Office. The layout and the information contained within a death certificate remained the same from July 1837 until April 1969 when the layout changed and the text was typed rather then hand-written as it was previously. For birth certificates from 1837-1969 the information includes:
- Registration district and sub-district
- County of registration
- Date and place of birth
- Child's full name (including middle names)
- Child's sex
- Father's name and occupation (if the name is left blank this usually means the child was born illegitimately)
- Mother's name including her maiden name and any other surnames she was previously known by
- Name of the informant with their residence and relationship to the child
- Date of registration
- Registrar's signature
On 1st April 1969 the certificates were changed to show the place of birth of both child's parents. A further change in 1984 created a space to record the occupation of the child's mother.
Indexes for birth registrations can be viewed on various sites, including MyHeritage's England & Wales, Birth Index, 1837-2005 collection.
Baptism registersBaptism registers
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Prior to 1st July 1837, we can find evidence of an ancestor's birth in baptism registers. These sometimes give a child's date of birth, but usually only the date of baptism is given. Not all children were baptised and some registers have been lost meaning that you may not be able to find an ancestor in a baptism register. In these cases try searching for their siblings in case their entry has survived.
Early baptism registers usually give the date of baptism, the child's name and the parent's names. Some only give the date of baptism, sex of the child and the father's name. In other cases extra information was given, including the family's place of residence and the father's occupation. A private baptism is usually noted with 'PB' in the margins and was commonly seen with babies who were unwell and not believed to live very long.
From 1812 baptism registers were written into standardised forms due to the introduction of George Rose’s Act. The information requested was:
- Place of baptism
- Date of baptism
- Name of child
- Names of parents (or only the mother's name of the child was illegitimate)
- Residence of the family
- Father's occupation (or mother's occupation if the child was illegitimate)
- Name of the clergyman who conducted the baptism
A person was not always baptised in the same parish, or even the same county, that they were born in. This is commonly seen in travelling families, such as those who worked on the canals. Some baptism registers have been digitised and others have been transcribed and are available online. Two examples are the England, Cornwall Parish Births and Baptisms collection and the England, Lancashire, Manchester Parish Baptisms, 1571-1907 record set which both have digitised images of the registers available to view.
Other birth records in EnglandOther birth records in England
You may choose to find out more about your ancestor's birth from the following sources:
- Newspapers- An announcement of a birth may have been placed in the births, marriages and deaths column of a local newspaper. This can give the child's name, date of birth, place of birth and parent's names. In earlier examples only the child's sex is given with no name. A date of birth may also be given in a person's obituary.
- Memorial inscriptions- A person's date of birth or year of birth is frequently seen on their headstone. This is not always 100% accurate but can be used as a guide to find evidence from another source.
- Official documentation- For more recent ancestors and cousins we may find evidence of their birth date in official records including passports, pension records and driving licences
- School registers- When a child enrolled into a new school their name and date of birth should have been recorded into the school register along with other details including the name of their next of kin and address.
- Military records- If an ancestor joined the military their date of birth may be recorded in related documentation. This is most likely for soldiers who enlisted in the 20th century
- Occupational records- Where any documentation survives regarding a person's employment into a company this may include their date of birth, such as staff registers. These are often held at local archives.
- Other sources- A person's date of birth may be found in a wide variety of other sources including settlement examinations, bastardy records, removal orders, workhouse registers, nonconformist registers, magazines and personal ephemera such as greetings cards and correspondence.
See alsoSee also
Explore more about Birth records in EnglandExplore more about Birth records in England
- England & Wales, Birth Index, 1837-2005 collection at MyHeritage
- England - Birth Records collections at MyHeritage
- Unlocking English & Welsh Civil Registration Records at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Unlocking Birth Records: Exploring Birth Dates and Alternate Sources at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
References