Missing "quarter" on Eng Birth & Death Civ Reg
Recently, the quarter that the event was registered no longer shows in the Source Record. Is there a reason this was eliminated from the record? Is this an interim change? Some of us rely heavily on these sources when correcting "mixed up" families where names, locations and dates are so similar. I personally use the GRO idx online and then find the matching entry in FamilySearch to attach the source. Also … I note that these are now "restricted" access to FSC and AL, so wondering whether the Quarter will show if viewed there?
Answers
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I am unclear @Mumsie56 quite where on those vital record indexes you saw the quarter. My grandpa's birth index was attached in 2016 and there is no sign of the quarter. One major issue is that FamilySearch simply doesn't have the ability to format a date with a quarter - believe me, I've tried. So the quarter can only have been in descriptive text or the notes.
The most sensible way of working with the quarter is to go, not to the GRO site, but to the FreeBMD site because that follows the same indexing rules as FS. You can pick up the quarter from there, along with the district, volume and page number, which will allow you to know exactly which source index is which.
The GRO site is, of course, crucial for the Mother's Maiden Name which isn't on the earlier FreeBMD entries.
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The equivalent index on Ancestry.com has a "Registration Quarter." The E&W Civil Registration Indexes are free on Ancestry.
Name Reginald DeMolina Hiles-smith
Age 0
Estimated Birth Year abt 1891
[abt 1891]
Registration Quarter Jul-Aug-Sep
Death Registration Place Lambeth, London, United Kingdom
Death Date Sep 1891
Inferred Death Place London, United Kingdom
Volume 1d
Page 270
Format on MyHeritage.com is slightly different.
Name Reginald-De-Molina Hiles-Smith
Death date July-Aug-Sep 1891
Death place Lambeth, London, England
Volume 1d
Page 2703 -
One small point to add, the Quarter period is not shown on the FreeBMD index from 1984. However, there is a link to "View the original", whereby one is taken to the "original" page (of the GRO paper index) that shows the actual month of registration. This is not available through the GRO index, which has a gap from 1935-1983, but thereafter continues to show only the quarter of the registration of the event.
I only discovered this today, but have only checked on Births so far. I'll look at Deaths later, a Marriage index not being available on the GRO website, of course.
Oh, and one other point: on the GRO index, the mother's maiden name is shown in Birth records from 1837 to 1926, whereas FreeBMD shows it from 1912-1996 (its coverage being "patchy" from 1994). In practice, I generally use FreeBMD for 1912-1993 birth searches (for this reason). The GRO index extends to 2024, at present.
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Thank you all for your comments. I am very aware of the alternate places we can find the information. I am a frontline Support Missionary and the query was one made by one of our guests. I was hoping more to gain insight into the more-recent restrictions related to the FamilySearch versions.
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@Mumsie56
You'll find a thread on the details here:4
