If You Had a Time Machine

[pharmaT]

Marriage certs to also give mothers name and maiden surname.

They have done in Scotland since they began in 1855.

Good idea of them to have done so, helps Scots with their ancestors, or those with Scots blood. My Scottish ancestor moved to England circa 1760, so long before civil reg. Luckily he lived a long age and remarried later in life, enough to see the Barrington registers (as mentioned before) for Co Durham, for his children, saying "son of John Stewart, a native of Selkirk, Scotland".

It makes cross referencing and double checking easier.  1855 Scottish birth certificates also had the place of birth of each parent, unfortunately they dropped that from later ones. 

[Crumblie]

I think I would ensure that all registers were completed using BLOCK CAPITALS to reduce the amount of time taken to decypher them.

[Finley 1]

The scots Certs are absolutely the best... but we musn't forget that they also rely on the informant having correct details of the deceased    sometimes this can be wrong ... Just a reminder.  double check is best..

xin

[pharmaT]

The scots Certs are absolutely the best... but we musn't forget that they also rely on the informant having correct details of the deceased    sometimes this can be wrong ... Just a reminder.  double check is best..

xin

Oh I know, but it gives you something to work with, somewhere to start with your research.  I have explained before about my grt grt Grandfather.  He named a man, John on his marriage certificate as his father.  When his FIL registered his death he gave the same name.  My research proved that this man could not possibly be his father.  However that work helped me find out a lot about his Mum's (my 3xgrt Grandmother's life).

[River Tyne Lass]

No, believe it or not I have never heard of Dade or Barrington, Jen.  However, I am grateful to them now that I know they were responsible for a more detailed format.

If I had a time machine I would also make it compulsory for School registers to be more detailed.  My illegitimate Grandmother has 'Harrogate' down as her previous school in her South Shields school admission.  I suspect she went to live there for a time with her birth Mother who had settled there after marriage for a time.  So it would have helped if the name of the school in Harrogate had been given and also my Grandmother's previous address.  This would have helped nail things.

I have another ancestor with 'left the area' at one point in the school admissions.  He then returned.  None of the other siblings 'left the area' so it would have been much more helpful if the entry had been less vague about where he had gone and why. 

[ThrelfallYorky]

Sadly, even today, with all the records kept,  many schools only find out that a child has "left the area", and it is not known where they went to.

[coombs]

And sometimes records got more basic the more recent they got. It is easier to trace possible fathers of illegitimate children before the 1834 act than after, same for the Barrington and Dade registers ending when printed standardised formats became the norm for parish registers in 1813.

[pharmaT]

Sadly, even today, with all the records kept,  many schools only find out that a child has "left the area", and it is not known where they went to.

When my Daughter was in P1 we moved so I moved her schools. I went in and told the teacher, backed it up with a letter and then on her last day I reminded them that it was her last day.  It was a Friday and she started her new school on the Monday.  On the Wednesday of that week I was called by the old school to say that she had not appeared that morning and no one had called in to say she was sick or anything.  So not good record keeping there.  She's now in High School and the teacher completes an electronic register.  Five times I've had a text saying that she is missing from school.  Each time I have called the school back, 4 of those times I've been told she's definitely not there.  Once i was so worried that after calling, texting messaging her and her friends I called the police.  Each time she was in school, in the class she was supposed to be in. Record keeping is definitely not getting better.

[coombs]

Googling ancestors names can be helpful, despite the highly irritating "Did you mean".

If I had a time machine I'd also have passenger lists to and from the UK be kept from 1600.