Hello Peter
The copy of a certificate that I requested from the Register Office in
Wrexham a couple of years ago was a typed copy made from the register held
there (this was a civil, not church marriage). The only signature was that
of the person making the copy in 2012. Local register offices are useful
if you are trying to narrow down your search in the event of common names,
in that it's possible to use the sub registration districts, and the staff
are helpful in locating the correct certificate, rather than wasting your
money on 'red herrings'. If you haven't used the offices before, it's
worth noting that the numbers allocated are unique to NWBMD, and not
relevant for the GRO record.
For religious ceremonies, certificates requested from the GRO are
photocopies from a copy of the register made at the time by the officiating
clergyman who was required to submit these copies to the GRO at three
monthly intervals. The only marriage records that show the participants'
handwriting (when they could write) are those made from original parish
registers, which are usually kept at the relevant county record
office. As an example, I have a GRO copy of the marriage of my husband's
gggrandfather in Chelsea in 1859, all written in the same hand, and also
the downloaded version of the original register in which the signatures of
the spouses and their witnesses are clearly in their own writing. These are
from the London Metropolitan Archives collection which is available on
Ancestry. Welsh registers are online at Find My Past and you can
search without being charged, but there is a charge to view or download a
transcription or an original image. I haven't used it, so I don't know
what the image is like. There has been a lot of discussion on the Clwyd
list about how to make best use of FMP which might help you.
Best wishes
Carol
On 2 March 2015 at 11:21, Peter Evans via <wls-merionethshire(a)rootsweb.com>
wrote:
Subject : Civil registration certificates - copies or transcription?
I want to order some Certificates from the Registrars, Council Offices,
Shirehall Street, Caernarfon, Gwynedd.
I have located the certificates on the website
www.northwalesbmd.org.uk
That
is where I found the above address.
I would prefer a xeroxcopy certificate. I do not prefer a transcribed
certificate. I want to see the real signature so I can compare a signature
against another source.
Now to my question. Are the certificates from the above Registrars, a copy
of some sort, or a transcription?
Regards,
Peter Evans
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