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Preparation
The first step is to find out all you can from surviving
relatives. If you can, find the full names of your parents,
grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It would be a great
advantage if you could discover where and when they were born, married and
died, what jobs they had and what religion they followed. You may be
lucky and find a family Bible with several generations recorded in
it. As a help to see exactly what information you have and how it
all fits together, record all you have onto a chart - this will show what
gaps exist and what you need to check.
Check your findings
The next step is to check all the information you have been
given. Beginning with the earliest date on your chart, prove it by
obtaining a copy of the relevant birth, marriage or death
certificate.
Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages began in
England and Wales on the 1st of July 1837. Copies of certificates
can be obtained from the Family Records Centre, 1 Myddleton Street,
London. Certificates can also be found in the appropriate local
Registrar's office.
Registration in Scotland started on the 1st
January 1855 and copies of records are held by the Registrar General for
Scotland, New Register House, Edinburgh, EH1 3YT.
Ireland is
different again, registration for Protestant marriages began in 1845 and
for all births, deaths and marriages in 1864. Records are held by
the Registrar General, Joyce House, Lombard Street, Dublin 2, except for
birth, death and marriage records for Northern Ireland since 1st of
January 1922 which are held by the Registrar General of Northern Ireland,
Oxford House, Chichester Street, Belfast, BT1 4HL.
The Local Studies
Centre holds the General Register Office Index of Births, Deaths and
Marriages for England and Wales (the St Catherine's House Index) from 1837
to 1983. Finding the correct entry on this index makes it much
easier to obtain a certificate. A list of the Registrars of Births,
Marriages and Deaths for each local authority is available in the Local
Studies Centre.
Further Research
Once obtained, the certificate will provide further useful
information. A birth certificate will confirm the date and the place
- it will also give you the child's full name, its parents and the
father's occupation. The knowledge you have gained will help you
trace the parent's marriage certificate as you will have the mother's
maiden name and the date before which they should have married. Each
marriage has two entries on the index, one for the bride and one for the
groom. The marriage certificate will give details of the ages,
occupations and residences of the bride and groom, it will also give the
names and occupations of the fathers. By alternate searches for
marriage and birth certificates it should be possible to trace the family
back to the early 19th century when registration began.
Census Records
The census should be the next source of information to be
checked. The Local Studies Centre holds the census for the whole of
the City of Sunderland for the years 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and
1901. The census recorded individuals at the address they were at on
census night (usually in late March or early April).
It includes ages, relationships to head of household (e.g. wife, son),
occupations, marital status and place of birth. There is a microfiche
name index to the 1881 Census which covers County
Durham and a CD-ROM of the 1881 Census for Great Britain.
Parish and other Church Records
The major records of births (more accurately, baptisms) marriages and
deaths prior to 1837 are the parish and other church registers. The
Local Studies Centre holds microfilms of many of the Church of England
records for the City of Sunderland. The earliest are from St
Michael's, Houghton-le-Spring which date from 1563. When checking
church registers a search should be made over ten years on either side of
the approximate date of birth as this will allow for late baptism and also
for other possible children of the marriage. The amount of
information given by the registers varies from church to church and
according to the changes in church regulations. A baptism entry
usually gives the parents' names (often the mother's maiden name as well),
an address and the fathers occupation. Once the baptism has been
found a search can be made for the parents' marriage and then their
baptisms. The Local Studies Centre also houses a collection of
Catholic and Non-Conformist records. The earliest Catholic records
date from the 18th century - very few of the Non-Conformist records are
earlier than 1850. Exact details of the various registers that are
available can be obtained by contacting the Local Studies Centre.
Internet
Sunderland Public Libraries subscribe to Ancestry Library
Edition, which allows you to
search censuses for
England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands from 1851 to 1901,
England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes for births,
deaths and marriages, plus UK and Ireland parish and probate
records from the 1500s to the 1800s and even earlier.
Please visit our Online Reference
area for more details of how to access Ancestry Library Edition
There is an endless variety of websites relating to family history
research. Many include indexes to original records and advice
Recommended
websites
Community Libraries
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