pje16 wrote:Has anyone tried this
I tried to find myself
when I enter my DoB it says
You can only use "Death age/DoB" with a Deaths search. Please select "Deaths" for Type.
So why does the box say
"death age / DoB"
It's either useless or I am missing a trick
Ah! You are likely missing a trick, or two, or... (You only need that box for a search of a death - for birth you just search the relevant dates. But see below!)
The very first time I tried using FreeBMD to find myself in the index of Birth registrations, I had my
original birth certificate open on my knees. I did succeed in finding myself - at the SEVENTH attempt! As you may imagine, by the fifth failure I started thinking: "
What's this? Is there something I haven't been told? Am I who I think I am?"
Don't blame FreeBMD, which is excellent. The issues come from needing a clear understanding of what is going on. There are a whole series of small 'wrinkles' involved in the matter of, in particular, Birth registrations and the GRO. Which, for simplicity, I avoided mentioning in the above.
e.g. Given the assumed age of most TLF members - the GRO will have no online searchable index records for you! Hence you have to use FreeBMD (which the UK GRO will refer you on to, if you go looking there for online references to your birth)
You need to know your birthday... Obviously! I hear you say. But not quite for the reasons you may think. What you will be
searching for is your birth
registration, not your birth. Legally this must happen up to 42 days after your birth. So at least you know it is going to be after your birth, but the actual date is most likely unknown and indeed isn't even recorded in the index.
All that is needed is the quarter of the year you name appears in the appropriate (registration district) register index (along with your mother's maiden name as check). The quarters, for the GRO Index are... March, June, September and December.
i.e. They are defined by the last month of the quarter, not the first.
So... say you were actually born on 22nd December 1955. Naturally you know you are a 1955 baby and search up to say the end of 1955. No joy? But that could be because - in terms of
registration - you are a March 1956 baby! Registration rollover (Birth + up to 42 days) takes you into the first quarter of 1956 which, as I explained, means you are a March 1956 baby (Jan, Feb, MARCH). So you might need to search to there.
It's easy when you get the hang of this, honestly. It's just that things don't quite work as you automatically assume, it's all a little bit quirky.