Obtaining Certificates of Births Deaths and Marriages.

Official records of births, deaths and marriages in England and Wales began on 1 July 1837 (separate systems operate for Scotland and Northern Ireland).

Registrars of births and deaths register births and deaths. Registrars of marriages or the Clergy register marriages.

Registrars of births, deaths and marriages complete individual registers within a short period of time whereas some clergy take much longer – some are still using the same register that was issued to their predecessor in 1837.

All completed registers of births, deaths and marriages are handed over to the Superintendent Registrar for Kent. The Superintendent Registrar can supply a certified copy of any birth, death or marriage entry from any register within her custody. A fee is payable for each certified copy (certificate).

* Please note Kent does not now include the Medway Towns (Chatham, Gillingham, Rochester) or the London Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich who hold their own records going back to the 1st July 1837.

Indexes are used to locate specific entries. Prior to the introduction of computers in the early 1990’s when a register of birth death or marriage was completed a hand written index was compiled. These indexes consist of individual books (one for each register) recording the register name and number, the date of the first entry in the register, the date of the last entry in the register, the surname and forename of each person registered and the entry number in the register.

Since the early 1990’s computers have been used to gather information to register births and deaths, compile indexes of births and deaths and to compile indexes of marriages.

We are now in the process of re-indexing all our hand written indexes. As you can appreciate it will take us some time.

We publish indexes online as soon as they have been re-indexed. If you do not find the entry you are looking for please contact our Certificate Office as our staff will be pleased to search the hand written indexes.