Sources: 1855 - The Bonus Year

Registration of births, marriages and deaths became compulsory in 1855, and it started with a bang! Extensive details were recorded. This was found to be too unwieldy and so in 1856 the records were reduced. Finding an 1855 record is, therefore, a bonus. Here is my 3 x great grandfather’s birth certificate.

It includes two details which are absent from later birth certificates; the number of siblings (2 boys, living) and the age and birthplace of both parents. (His father George Garden was 36, and was born in Rothes, Morayshire, and his mother was 27 and born in Duns, Berwick.)

This marriage certificate, of Alexander Middleton and Agnes Allan, shows the extra details, but also illustrates the difficulties faced by those registering in 1855.

While the groom was able to provide his birthplace and where and when registered “Born and registered on 8 May 1834 at Inverury” the bride could only provide her birthplace “Cluny”

My 4 x gt grandmother’s 1855 death certificate tells her whole life story – she was 90 and had lived all of her life in the parish of Largo. The certificate lists the names of her thirteen children, three of whom had died in infancy. It gives the ages of the surviving ten, from 64 year old Christian to 46 year old Ann, and brackets Margaret and Betty together as “twins”

If only all certificates carried this level of information!