Genealogy Chat

Is it possible to search on genes reunited putting the mothers maiden name in a search facility.? I know it is on BMD but I can only find a long list of children on genes reunited and then you have to look at each one to see who the mother was

Only after 3Q 1911. Before then the index only lists either the father's surname or, in the case of a single mother, her surname. Put the mother's surname in the Optional Keywords box.

If you know the general area, you could ignore the ones outside of that.

Thank you very much, I will have a go. Thank you.
Mary

Depends when the child was born but after 1911 it's easier to use FreeBMD

You can also add the county or the registration district to the keywords.
E.g., there are 60 John Smiths with mum's maiden surname of Jones b 1914 +/-2, but only one in Easington RD so keywords as Jones Easington or Jones Durham gets just 1 hit.

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It's worth suplementing the GRO index with a local index lookup, if there's a local index online - see http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/local_bmd

The local index must have a different ref, as their rego's aren't organized in the same way - local Bs & Ds must give a subdistrict, - they can also give difft identifiers, e.g., here are 2 John Henry's

Lancashire Birth indexes for the years: 1863
Surname Forename(s) Sub-District Registers At Mother's Maiden Name Reference
SMITH John H Deansgate Archives+, Manchester Central Library JONES DEA/61/86

Lancashire Birth indexes for the years: 1865
Surname Forename(s) Sub-District Registers At Mother's Maiden Name Reference
SMITH John Henry London Road Archives+, Manchester Central Library JONES LRD/65/21

Consider these 3 deaths from FreeBMD:

Deaths Sep 1849 (>99%)
Smith John Cheltenham 11 227

Deaths Dec 1849 (>99%)
Smith John Cheltenham 11 162
Smith John Cheltenham 11 169

These are the same 3 deaths put in the same order from the local index

Surname Given Names Age Year Died District Register Entry
SMITH John 1 1849 Cheltenham, Cheltenham 17 215
SMITH John 27 1849 Cheltenham, Charlton Kings 5 46
SMITH John 31 1849 Cheltenham, Cheltenham 17 369

I might suspect that, say, shortly before the 1841 census, John Smith married a Mary in South Shields.
Here's a lookup of Mary with spouse John Smith

Marriages Dec 1837 (>99%)
NORTH Mary South Shields 24 168
TURNER Mary South Shields 24 166 [This is a spurious entry - the real page # for John is 168]

Marriages Sep 1839 (>99%)
SMITH Mary South Shields 24 135

Of course, this just indicates there's a Mary on the same GRO page as John Smith - I would actually get both these hits if I replaced Mary by George.

Here's these two John Smiths from http://www.southtyneside.gov.uk/article/9966/Register-Search

John SMITH married Ann SMITH on 31 Dec 1837
Register: C F1 Entry: 79

John SMITH married Mary SMITH on 22 Sep 1839
Register: C F1 Entry: 409

There's a key at http://www.southtyneside.gov.uk/article/10778/Marriage-indexes
which shows code C F is St Hilda's, South Shields.

The local ref, if given, usually has 3 elements.
Firstly, a code indicating which subdistrict or church (or the rego office/registrar's own rego).
[This may not always be decoded, but were above]
Secondly a register sequence number within each code.
Thirdly, a page or entry number (Manchester was a page #). Marrs usually have an entry #, so one knows who wed whom.