General Register Office Indexes to Births, Marriages and Deaths

What are they? 

What dates do they cover? 

Where can I see them?

What format are they in?

Do I need to order them in advance of my visit? 

Further information

• From 1837 to 1983 there is a separate index for each quarter of each year, ie all births registered in January, February and March of a particular year are referred to as the March quarter, and so on.  Likewise for all the marriages and deaths.  From 1984 the indexes cover a whole year.
• If you already know exactly when and where a birth, marriage or death took place, you don’t need the GRO indexes.  You should be able to get a certificate from the local register office concerned (see How Do I Get A Certificate below).
• But if you can only guess at the date of a person’s birth, marriage or death, you search the indexes quarter by quarter until the right name is found.
• Within each quarter of each year, you will find:   Name in strict alphabetical order: surname, first name and initial(s) of middle name(s) Registration district GRO volume and page.  Volume codes (e.g. 7a, 9d) relate to English county areas – we have reference maps to show them.
• From September 1911 in the births, the mother’s maiden name is given.  From 1912 in the marriages, the spouse’s surname is given. From 1866 to 1969 in the deaths, the age of the deceased is given, and from 1969 his/her date of birth instead.
• Year, quarter, district, volume, page make up the full GRO reference, to be quoted when ordering certificates (see below).
• There are separate indexes to overseas registrations, including war deaths (Boer War and World Wars I and II). 
• Information on births, marriages and deaths held by local registrars and the GRO is only available in the form of a certificate, issued on payment of a fee.
• Before 1837, precise dates of birth and death were not officially recorded.  For research purposes before 1837, see Parish Registers and Nonconformist Registers.

How do I order a certificate?

• By phone, post, fax, or online from the GRO’s office in Southport.  For details, including full list of fees, go to the General Register Office website and follow links to “obtain a birth/marriage/death certificate”.  (For family history purposes, you need a full certificate, not a short certificate.)  By phone, post or fax, the fee is currently £8.50 with full GRO reference.  It is cheaper online with full GRO reference: £7.
• In person at the Family Records Centre in London: also £7 with full GRO reference.
• From the local register office concerned: also £7.

Frequently asked questions:

1    Why can’t I find a birth in the index?

• Using freeBMD?  It’s not yet a full version of the indexes.
• If the child was born near the end of a quarter, they may appear in the next one: you have 6 weeks to register a birth.
• The name may have a variant spelling: e.g Annie Gelsthorpe was registered as Annie Gilthorpe – her mother, who registered the birth, could not read or write, so would have been unaware of the error.
• Until fines for not registering births were introduced in 1874, it is known some births were not recorded.
• Much more likely: your family history knowledge is wrong: wrong ages may have been given later, so you’ve looked in the wrong years; children have been born illegitimate and brought up with another surname, etc.
• You may have disregarded a birth in the right name but in an unexpected part of the country – can you be sure where they were born?
• There may be a clerical error – one Tucker birth was misread and indexed as Tinker. 

2       I can’t afford £7 every time – is there a cheaper way?

3          There are several John Smiths born in Sheffield in June 1873 alone.  How do I know which is mine?

4          Can’t I get a certificate from you at Sheffield Archives?