Registration District 1886 (completed)

[Charlie Brown]

My grandfather gave his birthplace as St John's Wood when he signed up in 1914. Can anyone tell me which Registration district this would have been. He said he was 28yrs old so this would have been around 1886. His name was Smith so I need all the help I can get!
Many thanks
Charlie

[Necromancer]

pretty sure its Marylebone, not sure of sub district - not that it matters !

[Charlie Brown]

Thanks for your reply. That should narrow down the number of birth certificates I am looking for.
Charlie

[Mean_genie]

Yes, it is Marylebone.

You can use Brett Langston's 'Civil Registration Districts in England and Wales' website, which is arranged by Registration District, but also includes a Place-name Index.

www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/

Alternatively, sometimes you can use The National Archives' Catalogue;

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/search.asp

by putting in the place name and restricting your search to the record series for the nearest census year - 1841 and 1851 HO107; 1861 RG9; 1871 RG10; 1881 RG11; 1891 RG12; 1901 RG13; 1911 RG14 (the census isn't released yet, but the catalogue descriptions are in place).

It doesn't work in every case, if the place is too small to appear in the Catalogue description, and for a name like St John's Wood you might have to try a couple of variants, or use *. But most of the time it works quite well, and gives you the sub-district as well as other parishes nearby. The census was administered by Registrars up to and including 1911, so the districts are always the same as for Civil Registration.

Good luck with your Smiths. I have Smiths and Browns, in both England and Scotland, and I have found most of them, so it can be done!

Mean_genie

[Charlie Brown]

Thanks for all the useful information. I have printed it off for future reference.
Thanks also for the encouragement in my search. At present it feels like I have lots of pieces of the jigsaw but none of them fit together. For example I now have 4 references to my grandfathers age in marriage, death and WW1 records, but they do not give a clear year of birth. I will keep trying to add to the pieces in the hope that one day they all fit together!
Charlie