Civil Registration NW explained

Civil Registration Districts for North Warwickshire Explained

By Jacqui Simkins & Guy Tysoe © 2009

In 1837 civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced in England and Wales.  Civil registration was based upon Districts – Atherstone, Nuneaton, Foleshill, Meriden, Rugby, Hinckley, Lutterworth, Tamworth and Aston all encompassed various parts of the area of north Warwickshire which our Society covers.

But this is where confusion sets in.  When civil registration commenced, the Districts were largely the same as the Unions for the Poor Law.  But they didn’t remain static.  Civil servants delight in moving boundaries, so while a handful of places stayed in the same registration district from 1837-1974, many moved – and some had several moves.  In addition there were changes to the presentation of the assembled records.  A brief timeline is:

• 1852 – alteration to regional areas increasing them from 27 to 34;
• 1866 – introduction of typed GRO index lists; age at death started to appear on the listings;
• 1874 – introduction of penalties for failure to register births;
• 1911 – introduction of maiden name of the mother on the births;
• 1912 – the marriages indexes first show the surname of the spouse.

Revisions to places included in local registration districts – see downloadable pdf chart for north Warwickshire.

The revisions and changes of district can distract you when searching for a BMD registration.  For example, if you know your people are in Burton Hastings in the mid 1890s, you need to keep an eye on both Hinckley and Nuneaton registration events; if they are on the cusp of Arley and Ansley at any time you will need to check both Atherstone and Nuneaton.  Should you be searching for a birth in a village such as Corley, and you also know of a family of the same surname in Fillongley – finding a birth registered at Meriden could be for either village, or anywhere else in Meriden Registration District.  You look at GRO indexes and see “Aston” and would perhaps disregard it if searching from someone born in a small village such as Wishaw.  And also bear in mind that births and deaths have to be registered in the District where the event took place – not where the mother or deceased was normally resident (if your children are born in hospital, that is the Registration District of their birth).

The key is not to confuse the names of places with Registration Districts bearing the same name – and to appreciate that Parishes are of two types: Civil Parishes, used for censuses and from 1837 for registration of births, marriages and deaths; and the Ecclesiastical Parishes of the Church of England, for baptisms, marriages and burials. Although the two types frequently shared the same names and boundaries, they evolved quite independently from 1840 onwards.

The downloadable pdf chart gives a list of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Parishes in our area 1837-1974, and the Registration Districts in which they lay at varying times. Entries in capital letters are the ‘Ancient Parishes’ [which were both Civil and Ecclesiastical] from which the entries in lower case were created. Most of the ‘new’ Parishes shown in lower case were Ecclesiastical or Civil (indicated by ‘E’ or ‘C’); the two left blank (Atherstone and Wilnecote & Castle Liberty) were both, but did not have the same boundaries.  For clarity, a number of adjoining places that once formed part of civil registration in the NNWFHS area, are included on the second chart to assist researchers [if you think your ancestors were in Leicestershire, but have a marriage in the Atherstone Registration District, please advise the registrar’s office when asking for copy certificates – the date of the marriage is critical as to which office you contact].

There were many other ‘places’ within the area that never became parishes of either sort. While a reasonably large-scale map is a useful tool to locate them, it is an unfortunate fact that only very few show Civil Parish boundaries, and none show those of Ecclesiastical Parishes except that devised for our own society and used on this website.