So now we've ordered our certificates and while you're waiting for them to arrive, I'm going to show you exactly what you will expect to find in each certificate. I'll be using my own family tree to go through a birth, marriage and death certificate with you. So I am now going to go through the birth certificate as my maternal grandfather, who was born Francis McCann. But in fact, because his parents died when he was eight, and he was adopted by his elder sister who was married to john manly, he became known as Francis manly, and that was the surname of my mother. Now, this is the kind of thing that can sometimes crop up when you You're doing genealogical research. And occasionally people do have changes of name that can cause a lot of problems when you're researching and I was very lucky and lucky enough to find out that he had actually been born Francis McCowan.

But you know it as I say that was extremely lucky and doesn't always happen that you you find out the answers, but in this case, we know that he was actually born Francis MacAllan. So let's just start out by having a look at the top where it says registration district Charlton and then 1865 birth in the sub district of ardwick in the county of Lancaster. Now these are all districts within Greater Manchester and you won't find Manchester shown anywhere on that. certificate. And this can be confusing when you're just starting out and getting some certificates and things because it's all to do with the districts and the sub districts and the parishes. So if somebody says they were born in Manchester that can be confusing for births, marriages, etc, within city districts, but it's a very good idea to have a map available, such as Google Maps, or something like that.

So you can check all these places. So let's have a look at the main information. And you will see column one when and were born. And that's usually fairly specific 31st of may 1865. And by the way, my grandfather was very old when he had my mother. Yes, it was his second marriage and it is quite interesting that my grandma Father was a Victorian, but unfortunate didn't mean that I never knew him because obviously he died much earlier in the 20th century.

And on this skirt, you've got a specific place of birth, which was 13 Clifford street in oppan shore, which is a parish of Manchester. And this is a residential house. And most people of this time were born at home. Now that second column is first name, the third column is the sex. And the fourth column is the name and surname of the Father, in this case, john McCowan that's fairly straightforward. The fifth column is very useful.

And this may be the first time you see the maiden surname of a mother, in this case, it's Jane McCowan, formerly Stickney and now was very useful for me to accept because it led me to research. The Stickney family who originated well who were one of the families of America. Who were some of the first settlers there back in the 17th century. So that was a very useful piece of information, and it all comes down to finding that one name on a certificate. You can see how interesting that can be. The next column is also of interest, the occupation of the Father.

In this case, john McKellen was a laborer at the Ironworks. Now, again, if you're interested in the background history, this is very useful information. First of all, Manchester with very, very big area of development in the railways, so the Ironworks were a very main place of operation A patient in Manchester and my grandfather later on worked for the railways. So you can see that sort of continuity in the family there and that sort of connection with the background history of Manchester. For the next column, signature, description and residence of informant in this case, it's the mother Jane MacAllan living at 13 Fifth Street up until the next few columns are not usually of much interest when registered 20th of June. People normally had to be read, I think it's within six weeks or maybe a bit longer of the event.

I don't know whether it's worth checking that date through any particular interest, but it's not usually have much interest in the signature of the registrar is not usually of much interest to us either. So that is the information to be found in the birth certificate, the most interesting being the names of the parents and the occupations and places. So we're now going to have a look at the marriage of my maternal grandmother's parents. So here you can see at the top it says 18 at marriage solenoids at parish church in the parish of Oswald's colleague Hurst in the county of Lancaster. And again, this is a district of Manchester occasionally, even in the 19th century, you will get the occasion man marriage certificate, where it says registered in the Register office, which is interesting. It can mean either a couple we're not particularly religious, or maybe one of them was of a different denomination and didn't want to get married in the, you know, established church or whatever.

Or it could be all sorts of reasons, but it's quite interesting to see if you can find out why. So let's get down to the nitty gritty. So the first useful column is when married and that was October 30. name and surname Michael Henry read and the spelling and Annie Jepsen and the age in this case, specifically, that those 23 are occasionally very annoyingly. You'll find that all that is written there is all full age, which means they work 21 or over, which is very annoying when you're trying out a trying to find out a specific date of birth. The next column is condition meaning whether they were bachelor or spinster, or widow or widower and in this case their bachelor and spinster. The next column is rank or profession now Michael Henry Reid was a machine ruler.

And often you'll find with occupations you won't always recognize, some, a lot of days. You can look things up on the internet, or you can buy yourself a book of old occupations. Now in this case of machine rule, I do know that he worked in the paper factory in Manchester and a machine ruler was somebody who is skilled in using a machine That measured a paper or something like that. Now for Annie she has given a professional housekeeper. You will often find in many documents at this time that the female is not given an occupation and This often happens on certificates and in the census records. Often the work women did at home was not really recognized as an occupation.

And sometimes there was an occupation such as maybe dressmaker or something like that. But don't be surprised if you find that is often blank for the female. Next column is a residence at the time of marriage and in this case, Michael Henry was living in 10 need wood Street and and he was living at 77 income and straight now okay. You will find here that they both appear to be living at the same address. This does not mean that they were living together before they were married. What it can mean is that if the couple did not live very close to each other than one of them may be staying at the parents of the prospective spouse the night or a few nights before the wedding.

So obviously, they're experts at the time marriage is the same as their spouse. But it doesn't mean they were living as husband and wife before their marriage. And the next column it's often very interesting is the names of the fathers. And in this case, it's Thomas Reid and Henry Jepsen. And then we're Ranko professional. The father also very interesting again told us read was also a machine ruler.

And Henry Jepsen was an inspector. Now, that could be an inspector, anything really. But I do happen to know some other records that he was a railway inspector. And of course, that gives us some indication of family, occupation and some continuity because my grandmother, their daughter, married somebody who worked in the railway. So it is possible that she met him through that connection. So all those things are very interesting to know and you tie up different bits of information.

So to continue, don't forget to read the next bit of information. I think occasionally people just stick to the columns. But you really, really do need to check the next dates, married in the parish church according to the rights and ceremonies of the established church by sometimes that gets a license and then or after in this case bands now, bands means that they the marriage was announced for three consecutive Sundays in the parish churches of the prospective spouses so that anybody who thought the marriage should not go ahead could stand up and say so. Now, if the marriage was by license that meant that this did not have to take place. Usually you will find that the welfare of the person are more likely they would be married by license because the license cost money. Occasionally, you can read between the lines, if it's a not so wealthy couple, it's possible that there was no parental consent.

So they didn't want to have the bands read. So they might have kind of gone off and managed by a license so that they could marry elsewhere. So it's a quite interesting and useful little thing to know if you find a marriage was by license. So then we see this marriage with solid lies between us Michael Henry Reed and Annie Jetson and in this case, they obviously both signed and very often, particularly the earlier back you go, you will find that people were illiterate and could not write their own names and in that case, you will see the mark off so so yeah, were they signed with a cross And the next thing you should never ignore, and that's the name of the witnesses. So in the presence of us, Joseph Jepsen, and Mary Clegg. Now, these can often be added, obviously, in this case, at least one of them is family members.

So that can be very, very useful for when you're trying to identify a person later on. So if I was looking at Annie Jackson's family, and if there was more than one, Annie Jepsen, who was a daughter of a hemorrhage, Emery Jepsen, then the Joseph Jepsen here would be a really, really good clue is probably a brother. And I think in this case, it is and of course, Mary Clegg, although the surname is different, she could well be a married sister. So always, always, always note down the names of the witnesses, because you may need them later on. No, that's the marriage certificate. And finally, we're going to have a look at a death certificate.

Now I haven't said too much about death certificates before because they're not quite as useful as the birth and marriage certificates in terms of going back a generation. Because with births and marriages, you've got the parents names there. Obviously, with English and Welsh certificate death certificates, you don't have that information. However, if you were to be looking at Scottish records as a death certificate is extremely useful to get hold off if you can, because it actually gives the names of the parents as well. So that can be healing Really useful if you haven't been able to find that anywhere else. So, this is the death of my, my maternal grandfather's father, my great grandfather, john McCowan, and at the top it's 1873 deaths in the sub district of Hardwick in the county of Lancaster.

So the first column when and where died. We've got ninth of March 1873. This time it is a 30 Clifford Street, open shore. You may recall that my grandfather was born in 13 Clifford Street. So it looks like these days at some point just move down the road. You will find this quite a lot particularly in the 19th century that people in the laboring classes moved quite a lot but very much within the same area and often on the same street.

Although there is possibility that sometimes there was a lot of building going on, it could be just the they were at the same address, but the number of the house had changed. I can't always be sure of that. But it does look as though they just moved further up the street there. And so, column number two is name and surname, and three is sex again, an age 47 years, so quite young. And I often do suggest ordering death certificates when you notice that somebody has died at a fairly young age because it's, you know, it's quite interesting to see what the cause of death was, if you want to look into that. So yeah, so 47 years and i'll come on to that in a minute.

His occupation at the time of his death was cotton dire. If you recall, in my grandfather's birth certificate, John's occupation was a labor at the iron work. So he has changed his occupation here. I, you know, what we can speculate as to why he was obviously working one with one of the cotton factories of Manchester. And that's quite a different occupation. And again, something you find a lot people do change their occupations from time to time.

You know, sometimes in the poorer classes, they just go where there is work. And then here, the cause of death is bronchitis and ask them okay, so You might think like he died of bronchitis. But this can be quite fascinating in terms of social history. Because if you know anything about the history of Manchester, you might know that particularly at this time, during the really high industrial period, Manchester was one of the most polluted cities in the world. And many, many, many people died young, have respiratory diseases, and has a lot of my family lived in Manchester at this time. I have come across this quite a lot.

My grandmother's father died at the age of 35. From respiratory diseases, and also one of her sisters died very young, for the same reason. So it's very interesting to look into the background histories of the day talents and cities that your ancestors worked in, that you can piece all these little facts together and match them against the background history of the time. So, the next column can be useful for identification purposes if you're trying to find out. Say, if you've been having difficulty finding somebody in ordering a death certificate to see if the informant is a member of the family that you know of, that can help you identify somebody. So in this case, the mark of Jane MacAllan, so we know she was his wife, present at the death at 32 foot Street, open shore.

And sadly, as you can see there, first of all, is a knockoff so we know that she was illiterate which is very common in the poorer classes at this time. And sadly, I also am Know that she died just a few months later have very similar disease. So again, a yet another person in my family who died young in Manchester, and not uncommon at all. And, and of course, that's the reason my grandfather was eight at this time and that was reason why he was adopted by his elder sister and her husband. So again, we've got red when registered and signature of registrar, which is not really of much importance. So there you have it, that is the information in the death certificate.

And you can see there really a couple of reasons why you might want to order a death certificate certificate usually to find our cause of death or for identification purposes. So there we are. I hope you receive your own certificates very soon so that you can use this session to go through them and make sure that you don't miss out on any of the important bits of information that they contain. Remember to make a note of all the details from the certificates including the place names and the names of witnesses, as you never know when they will come in useful.