Birth certificate for England and Wales

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All birth certificates ordered on birth-certificate.co.uk are full and official long version certificates. The certificares include the following, the name and gender of the child, their date and place of birth. The father’s name and surname, and mother’s name, surname and maiden name are listed, along with the father’s occupation. The mother’s maiden name was only added after September 1911.

A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a child. The term “birth certificate” refers to a certification of the original birth record.

The compulsory registration of births with governmental agencies is a practice that originated in the United Kingdom in 1853.

The actual record of birth is stored with a government agency. That agency will issue certified copies or representations of the original birth record upon request, which can be used to apply for government benefits, such as passports. The certification is signed and/or sealed by the registrar or other custodian of birth records, who is commissioned by the government.

Types of certified copies issued in England and Wales

Each “full” birth certificate issued is actually a certified copy of an entry from the register of births, which is held by the local Register office and at the General Register Office,Southport, pursuant to the Births and Deaths Registration Act of 1953. The full certificate is an exact copy of the entry, showing the child’s surname, forename(s), date of birth, sex, place of birth, the parent(s) name(s), their address and occupations at the time of registration. Full certificates are required for most legal purposes.

In addition, one can obtain a “short” birth certificate, which is an abstract of the original entry and only includes the surname, forename(s), date of birth, sex, registration district and sub-district in which the birth took place. No fee is chargeable for this certificate at the time of registration.

Obtaining copies of birth certificates

Birth certificates in England and Wales

You can get a copy of a birth certificate in one of the following ways and a fee will be charged:

online from birth-certificate.co.uk if you have full details of the birth or know the GRO Index reference number. You can pay by credit or debit card. You can apply online at www.birth-certificate.co.uk

For details of the fees for copies of birth certificates, see under heading Fees for copies of birth certificates.

You should provide as much information about the birth as possible. If you do not know your exact date of birth, a search will be made for one year either side of the year you give. If an entry cannot be traced, part of the fee paid will be kept and the balance returned.

If you have the index from the birth, death, marriage indexes. The index reference number can be found by searching the indexes on microfiche at some large libraries and public record offices. Most of the indexes from 1837 until the early 20th century can be searched free of charge at: www.freebmd.org.uk. Some local register offices have made their own indexes available online: see ukbmd.org.uk.

You can get a certificate, for social security purposes only, from the local registrar where the birth was registered. If you obtain the copy soon after the birth is registered, you will be charged a lower fee. Once the register has been passed to the Superintendent Registrar, the full fee is charged. The certificate will be kept by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).