When conducting family history research, you will quickly learn that civil registers of births, marriages and deaths are referred to by the abbreviation BMD in genealogical circles. Most civilised countries started to record these key events of their inhabitants many years ago. The reasoning was simple. In order for an individual to make a legal claim or to seek any form of state benefit, the person in question had to prove their unique identity. In effect, BMD certificates were the first form of national ID card, and these vital paper documents are still requested to this day in order to qualify for receipt of many other modern ID-related items, e.g. passports, driving licences, naturalization, etc.
Older civilised nations introduced laws during the 19th century demanding that all BMD events should be registered. For example, English & Welsh BMD records commence in 1837, and Scottish a little later. The situation in Ireland is a bit more complicated, as always due to the island’s complex political history. Comprehensive Irish BMD registers were first compiled from 1864 onwards, however non-Roman Catholic marriages were also registered during earlier years starting in 1845. Unfortunately, genealogy researchers have proved many, many times that the early BMD registers are far from complete. The onus to record BMD events rested with the families concerned. It is clear in Ireland and other places that many people in the early years of civil registration requirements were either ignorant of their duties or possibly distrustful of the government’s reasoning in demanding that personal family details should be recorded by law.
Omissions due to the latter concerns still resonate in modern society as more and more personal details are requested by state authorities and commercial institutions. We can empathise with our ancestors if they didn’t help us with our genealogy research decades later.
For genealogy research purposes, a small photocopy of a relevant BMD register entry is all that is needed to extract and prove family connections. This should be borne in mind when requesting certificates as this option is much cheaper (when available) than ordering full-size formal replicas of certificates. However, if you are searching for a parental or grand-parental certificate in relation to a desired application for new/dual nationality or other legal purposes, then you must request the latter full replica called a Long Form certificate which is more expensive. Irish Ancestry Research can organise your searches for BMD certificates and retrieve copies on your behalf.
Information which can be gleaned from civil BMD Certificates:
Birth Certificate – name, sex, date & place of birth. Also, the names of the parents possibly with addresses for each. The father’s occupation is commonly recorded. The most useful new research information could be the mother’s maiden name.
Marriage Certificate – date & place of marriage, complete with full names and addresses of the bride and groom. Depending on the era or location, the married couple’s ages may be either recorded in years or stated simply as “full” meaning above the minimum legal age of the time. The occupation of at least the groom is normally given. Genealogists consider that marriage certs are the most valuable of the BMD trinity because the fathers of the bride and groom must be listed along with their occupations, if applicable. At least two chosen witnesses are commonly recorded at the foot of the certificate. Pay attention to these names as they are likely to be family members or neighbours of the bride or groom.
Death Certificate – as a minimum, date & cause of death plus name, marital status & (assumed) age of the deceased. The contents of death certs vary from country to country. In some places, the minimal information will not help to further Family History knowledge, except for maybe understanding a cause of death for an ancestor. This is because the place of death is not necessarily a family home address, and the person registering the death may not be a family member. Then again, you might get lucky – the circumstances of the death and person(s) present might be all family-related. At the other end of the scale, other variants of a death cert can actually give a potted history of the life and health of the deceased. In some US cities, for example, the spouse and any dependants and parents of the deceased are sometimes given, complete with addresses or places of birth. There could even be a short medical report signed by the deceased’s physician and details of the connected burial.
Be aware that the information recorded on a BMD certificate is only as accurate as the details passed to the Registrar by the Informant. There could be spelling mistakes and errors, particularly if the informant was illiterate.
