Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates

General Register Office

The GOV.UK website provides links to information related to births, deaths and marriages.

The General Register Office also known as the GRO maintain the national archive of Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates for England and Wales.  Certificates date back to 1st July 1837, when Civil Registration began. 

• Research your Family History using the General Register Office - Information on obtaining birth, marriage and death certificates and also details on adoption records and overseas records.
• Search GRO Birth & Death Indexes - The General Register Office now provide the civil registration indexes for births (1837-1915) and deaths (1837-1957) directly on their website. The birth index has become particularly useful, as the mother's maiden name has been added to the registration entries. So without ordering certificates this resource can help you find children that died between censuses and if you've found families in a census it may help you work our the mother's maiden name. The indexes are free to search, you just need to register for an account. You can also order both printed and PDF versions of certificates.
• GRO Online Ordering Service for Certificates

There are separate registration offices for:

• Scotland
• Northern Ireland

Other Sites connected with Civil Registration

• Free BMD - This is an ongoing project to transcribe the Civil Registration Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths, otherwise known as the GRO Indexes and is free.  If you would like to help transcribe for this project, you can find more details at: Join FreeBMD
• Find my Past - Online scans of the GRO Indexes, amongst other records including census and passenger lists.  You will need to purchase 'credits' to view the scans of records, although the indexes are free to search.
• Civil Registration - GENUKI provides information on how certificates can be obtained from the Local Register Offices in Devon.  There is also an index of the towns and parishes covered by each of the Devon Registration Districts.
• UK BMD - Provides links to websites that have online transcriptions of UK births, marriages, deaths and census information.  You can select by county to view the links provided.