England and Wales, Civil Registration Index July 1 1837 to date

Ancestry.co.uk - England and Wales, Civil Registration Index

Ancestry.co.uk - England and Wales, Civil Registration Index: "The massive task of digitizing and, making searchable, the names contained in the GRO indexes has been underway for a few years now.

This database is made available to Ancestry users, courtesy of the volunteers of the FreeBMD organization. The leadership of FreeBMD have organized the permissions and tools necessary to enable hundreds of volunteers to convert to electronic text, and publish online, searchable indexes to the civil registrations in England and Wales. More than 62 million names have already been indexed by FreeBMD, between the years of 1837 and 1983, and more names continue to be added everyday. Ancestry will add to this database as more names are provided by FreeBMD. It is estimated that more than 50% of the names between 1837 and 1900 have been indexed. Because of the nature of the index you will note that not all of the fields have been indexed all of the time. Until 1866, most of the indexes were handwritten, making the task of conversion sometimes difficult.

FreeBMD. England and Wales, Civil Registration Index: 1837-1900.
[database online] Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2001.

Original data: Microfilm and microfiche of the England and Wales, Civil Registration Indexes created by the General Register Office, in London, England."

Now you may see images too

and
UKBMD - Births, Marriages, Deaths Indexes for the UK, On-Line

Local BMD - these are the indexes created from the original registration entries held by the local registrars. Civil registration from its start is covered.

More and more counties are putting their indexes on-line, so it is advisable to start looking here first bcause these are the originals from which the GRO index - a secondary source - is made.