What do the clues on this birth certificate mean?

Q My ancestor, Charles Hayes, was born on 6 October 1700 in Harrow on the Hill to Charles Hayes and Ann Ewster. He attended University College Cambridge and, described as “one of the Gentlemen of the

Q My maternal great great grandfather was called John Budd. The family story is that he was abandoned in an orphanage as a baby and was given his name there. Aged 11, he was said to have been turned o

Registers of baptisms, marriages and burials are essential for tracing ancestors before civil registration began (1837 in England and Wales, 1855 in Scotland, and 1864 in Ireland). This month we’re on

I was very interested to read Nicola Johnson’s article exploring the world of stokers in your January 2026 issue. My great grandfather, John Thomas Gray, was a stoker on the HMS Indomitable during the

Q I’ve been struggling with understanding why my illegitimate 2x great-grandfather born 1857 was with a family (Walker) seemingly unconnected to his own, as a boarder, on the 1861 census (along with a

Local parish records are the backbone of family history, detailing the baptisms, marriages and burials that reveal key events in our ancestors’ lives. While many of these records are now online, other