Use GRO certificates

[Gragareth]

Reading queries in RootsChat, and personal contact with my newly found relatives,  it appears that many, probably new to genealogy, are researching only by censuses.  Finding who we seek in a census should  be backed-up by getting their birth, marriage, death certificates.  Using only census details can lead to mistakes. 
Gragareth.

[MrsLizzy]

This is true, but in both cases we're depending on the information given being correct, with no mistakes or outright lies. In one census I know of someone who put his religion down as a "Jedi Knight" - I can imagine future genealogists eagerly searching for information on these Jedi Knights only to find it was a huge joke. 

[tazzie]

   I have a marriage certificate for my husbands grandfather that gives his father as William...and same occupation as the groom.
 3 months of searching later...along comes grandfathers birth cert...father THOMAS!! So even certificates cannot be relied on in all cases.

 We have now an established tree back to 1755 for hubbies family   is he smug or what!

                     Tazzie

[MrsLizzy]

That's right - my great great grandfather put his father down on his marriage in 1885 as Henry William Giesen, occupation Accountant.  In fact he was born with a completely different surname, and his birth certificate lists no father.   I'm grateful to his mother at least that she didn't make up a fictional father and occupation to save face in front of the registrar.  I'd have been searching fruitlessly for years for a non-existent person!

I spotted on the 1901 census too, what I'm certain was a deliberate lie by a relative who was living with her 7 year old son.  Previous censuses show her with her maiden name living with her widowed mother and family, and in the 1901 census she still has her maiden surname, but has a son, and describes herself as a widow. 

[kerryb]

And I won't even get started on my Helena Lovekin Stanford Smith's family.  All I will say is that the girls in the family all have different fathers on their marriage certificates from those on their birth certificates and all seem to be totally ficitional characters!!!

So you can't always believe the BMD certificates, they have to be treated with as much caution as the census returns.

Kerry

[MrsLizzy]

There was a tv programme on a few years ago called Antiques Ghosthunt or something like that, where genealogists/family history nuts like us were able to use psychic mediums to get in touch with deceased relatives and grill them!  Imagine what you'd say to your Helena!  I want a word with my other great great grandfather Edward Lister, for lying about his age at his marriage in about 1864, and thus leading me up the garden path when searching for his birth. 

[Necromancer]

My neighbour always puts 'Jedi Knight' down on the Census and Council Tax Returns - being a member of a religious sect gets him a discount 

[Welsh Jules]

If I'd taken the information on marriage certificates as correct I would have been on all sorts of wild goose chases for immaginary fathers, grandfathers listed as fathers and dates of birth changed to make a few ancestors appear younger than they really were! To be honest in my case it's been the census records that have got me back on track on more than one occaision.

[Tati]

Some of mine are like Kerry's    Every document a lie