General Register Office

Registration of births, marriage and deaths in England started in 1837. Copies of certificates can be obtained from the GRO. It was not compulsory to register a birth, marriage or death with the British authorities whilst you were abroad, but if the event was registered with the authorities then a certificate can be obtained from here.

The records of the General Register Office (GRO) are part of the National Archives. Some of the records have a National Archives catalogue reference, series RG, but some of the records in respect of military overseas births, marriages and deaths do not. National Archives or GRO documentation about the latter group of records is very brief.

The GRO records are closed to the public.

Overseas Records Series RG

Read the National Archives brief Research Guide Looking for records of a birth, marriage or death of a British national at sea or abroad

• RG 32 General Register Office: Miscellaneous Foreign Returns 1831-1969 Details of the contents Browse the subsections
• RG 33 General Register Office: Foreign Registers and Returns 1627-1960 Details of the contents Browse the subsections
• RG 34 General Register Office: Miscellaneous Foreign Marriage Returns 1826-1921 Details of the contents Browse the subsections
• RG 35 General Register Office: Miscellaneous Foreign Death Returns 1830-1921 Details of the contents Browse the subsections
• RG 36 General Register Office: Registers and Returns of Births, Marriages and Deaths in the Protectorates etc of Africa and Asia 1895-1965 includes records for Sarawak, Malaya, including Johore and Selangor, and British North Borneo, commencing at varying dates.
  

Details of the contents Browse the subsections

• RG 43 General Register Office: Indexes to Miscellaneous Foreign Returns of Births, Marriages and Deaths 1627-1960 Indexes to the non-statutory registers and returns in RG 32 to RG 34, and to certain Army and Statutory registers retained by the Registrar-General. Also appears to contain indexes to RG 35 Contents

This Fact Sheet from the now closed Family Records Centre advises that RG 33 contains some entries, mostly from the twentieth century, from the Princely States Bikaner, Eastern Rajputana, Gwalior, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Madras States, Mysore, Punjab States and Trivandrum, in the series RG 33/90-113 which are indexed in RG 43/15. Some nineteenth and early twentieth century deaths in French territories in India are in RG 35/16 and RG 35/20-44

More details are available in the book Tracing Your Ancestors in The National Archives by Amanda Bevan, (7th edn, National Archives Kew, 2006), Chapter 8 - Births, marriages and deaths of Britons overseas or in the armed services. Available at the British Library

Indexes to Overseas BMD available on Family Relatives (free search) and FindMyPast (pay to search) appear to be the indexes from RG 43, together with other indexes in respect of military overseas BMD. If you find a reference in the indexes to a record in one of the above returns, the following options are available

• Request a copy online from the GRO (see below)
• The above returns are available on microfilm at the National Archives, Kew.
• RG 32, RG 33, RG 34 and RG 36 records are available online at BMD Registers which ia a pay site.(These are the returns available at December 2009, more may be added).

Military Overseas Records for BMD

See Chaplains Returns

England and Wales Census Records

See Census and British Army Records

External Links

• Wikipedia
• Order a certificate online from the GRO. This is the only GRO website.
• Contact details for the GRO from Direct.gov.uk, including email address for queries about certificates
• Brief guide Using the General Register Office to research family history from Direct.gov.uk, which shows the limited details now available since the main GRO website was closed.
• GRO Guide to Overseas Records. This link is not currently accessible, but may become available as an archived webpage.