As genealogists, we rely on official records. Birth, marriage, death and census records – the core records we all use when researching our family history – are public records for which our ancestors were obliged to provide information by force of law. The rules applying to the creation of these records are governed by statutes – Acts of Parliament – passed at Westminster. In the case of BMDs, the relevant Acts are the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836 for England and Wales, and the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland) Act 1854 for Scotland.
It’s a truism in genealogical research that in order to properly understand a record, you have to understand the context in which the record was created. By that I don’t just mean the sociohistorical context, but also the legal context. The Acts establish the rules under which these records were created, and set out the purposes for which they were created. On a basic level, the Schedules of the Acts specify the appearance of the forms to be used for record-keeping, or the information to be recorded.
But more than that, the legislation also sets out the system by which this information was – or at least should have been – recorded. It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that records were created for genealogists, and interpreting them in light of that mistake. Understanding the context in which the record was created in the past helps
