A Shoutout to our Registrar

Recently at Hornsby Shire Family History Group we welcomed Amanda Ianna, NSW Registrar for Births, Deaths and Marriages to our meeting. I was thrilled that such a busy person accepted my invitation to address our Group as I knew that she was an enthusiastic and energetic speaker who would keep our members entertained.

During the meeting on Wednesday 17 October several of our members mentioned their frustrations with searching the NSW Historical BDM indexes since the Registry's website revamp about a fortnight earlier. Amanda, who is very interested in user feedback, said she would take this up with the website team and see if they could address our issue. 

Two days later on Friday 19 October when I opened the Registry's BDM Home Page I found that our website issue  had already been addressed and that the link to start searching the Historical Indexes was only a click away from the Home Page. 

Thank you Amanda for your prompt resolution of our issue.

BDM Places - A Rant

I get annoyed when people often incorrectly use the NSW BDM Indexes to provide place names for Birth Death or Marriage events.

In so many trees I find that the Place of an Event is incorrectly recorded as the Place of Registration (the registry where the event was recorded). If I don't have a second reliable source (like a certificate) for an NSW event I record the place accurately as NSW, Australia.

Just because a birth was registered in Sydney does not mean that the event occurred in Sydney. My Grandfather died in hospital Darlinghurst but his death was registered in Rockdale close to Brighton-le-sands where the family lived. Aunt Jane's death was registered in Sydney but I know she died at Waverley. My Grandparents were married at Lavender Bay but their marriage was registered at St Leonards. My Maternal Grandmother was born at Thompson's Creek but her birth was registered at Rockley.

I could go on and on and on.... but you get my drift. Registration Place does not equal the Place of the Event.

Unfortunately many people in their online Public Trees have recorded the places for these events erroneously.

How can we educate our fellow researchers to do the right thing?

Speedy service

Last time I ordered some certificates from the NSW Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages I aired my frustrations on social media because they took about seven weeks to arrive.

I am pleased to report that the death certificate for my ancestor, Michael Harrington Ryan, that I ordered on 14 March arrived as a .pdf file in my inbox just four days later on 18 March. What a quick turnaround! 

What is especially pleasing is that this document contains an image from the original register entry. The certificates I have received over the past few years have contained  typed transcriptions from the original registers. Reverting to images of the original entries removes the likelihood of entries being mistyped from the sometimes poor handwriting in the registers. It is, of course, up to us now to correctly decode the sometimes illegible writing.

Congratulations NSW Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages on your speedy service and  new document format.