Family Tree...?

Question:

Family Tree...?

I am doing my family tree...but come to a full stop. ... I never new where my father was born... I was told I could get quite a lot of information from his birth certificate ...but cant get his birth certificate because I dont know where he was born..I did manage to get a marriage certificate....and managed to get his age...and year he was born.....so dont know where to go from here..any ideas...I would be so greatful...

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Step 1: Sign up to Ancestry.co.uk. You don't need to pay for membership or anything - just register yourself as a user. That much is free.
Step 2: This will give you access to the England&Wales BMD indexes. Click on the link for the *complete* 1837-1983 indexes *births* tab.
Step 3: Enter a surname in the search box. Leave the 'quarter' box set to 'all'. Put in the first name if you like. Put in a year to search, and I would suggest setting the next box to plus or minus one year either side just to allow for any inconsistances with the marriage certificate.
Step 4: A list of all the different quarters of the years you searched for will come up, with individual pages on which your name MIGHT be on. Search all of them methodically. At this point it helps if you are searching for an unusual surname rather than something common like Smith or Jones. Even if you are looking for a "John Smith", all might not be lost if you know a middle name, as this will allow you to exclude a lot of possible entries already.
Step 5: This is where things stop being free and you have to pay for a birth certifcate.
Step 6: Hopefully, after searching the pages for a couple of years either side of the year you think your father was born you will have a couple of possible index references to work with, which will give you a mothers maiden name and district of birth. It is probably safe to assume that his birth might be somewhere near to where his marriage took place, although that can be a dangerous assumption to make. As far as the 20thC is concerned, people were born and married a lot further afield than in previous centuries, so just because an entry is at the other side of the country doesn't mean it is wrong. If you are still left with a couple of possible entries in the birth indexes then you will have to order both from the General Register Office to see which is correct. If the marriage certificate you have gives his fathers name and occupation, then you could use that as a "checking reference" when you place your order - which should ensure that you either get the right one or a partial refund. Use the website www.gro.gov.uk to order them for ⣷ (using the references you noted down from Ancestry) or alternatively for a little more you can order in the post or by telephone.