Genealogy Sources
Birth Certificates
Building Blocks in your Investigation
Birth Certificates are crucial sources to obtain due to the amount of information they hold. Details acquired from them cannot be found anywhere else. They lead you on a journey to establishing your Family tree. Once you have one, it is possible to obtain a marriage certificate. From this you can obtain more birth certificates and so on.
Information Gathered
From left to right the form provides: the date of birth, place of birth, street name, the name of the town, village or hamlet; the next two columns are taken up by the name and sex of the person born; then comes the name and surname of the father (this is left blank if the child is illegitimate). The next column features the mother’s name, surname and, a real bonus for family historians, her maiden name. Next comes the father’s occupation, then the name and residence of the informant (in most cases the mother). Often during the early years of registration, when illiteracy levels were high, you will see a cross, the mother’s mark, in this column. The last three columns are of little interest to us. Two deal with when the birth was registered and by whom, and there is a final column headed ‘Name entered after registration’, which is seldom filled.