Victorian BDMs (Australia)

[jorghes]

Not sure if anyone is interested, however the Victorian BDM service has lowered it's price for uncertified historical certificates to $20 for the month of August (i.e. Family History Month) - you can find the search page here. (Victoria only, I am unsure if any of the other states of Australia has something similar going on).

For those who aren't sure what this means, it is an instantaneous downloadable PDF of the register page which includes whoever you're searching. I highly recommend Victorian BDM (and really any Australian documents) as they are highly detailed with plenty of extra information for the researcher. There are severe limits on what can be searched - 100 years for births, 30 years for deaths and 60 years for marriages (i.e. you can get birth register entries for 1919, deaths from 1989 and marriages from 1959.)

I think in the end it's only approximately $1-$1.50 off, but any saving is a good one.

In pounds that's approximately £11.30.

 

[CathP]

Yes, you are right about the Victorian certificates, in that they are very informative from the time civil registration began there in 1853. They used what became known as the Archer system. I remember receiving a death certificate for an ancestor's brother and there in front of me was his life - parents' names, occupations, place of birth, name of spouse, age at and place of marriage, name of spouse, how long in the Colony and all offsprings' names and ages(or if deceased), as well as age at death, cause of death, place and time of death and burial. Obviously this all depended on the informant's knowledge. The only other ones from the mid-19th century that I'm aware of as being so informative were the Scottish ones so perhaps the longish wait- until 1855 for them - was worth it.
England (1837), for example, and Tasmania (1838) had begun civil registration, but I have to say when I received my first certificate from England, I nearly threw it out in disgust because there was so little information on it. Similarly, earlier South Australia's certificates are also disappointing and to go from the well set-up Victorian system to the haphazard South Australian one is also annoying. Generally speaking, records from the six Australian colonies of the 19th century vary a lot in how much information they contain, so be aware of this if you would like to buy one.
On a connected theme, one has to congratulate the Scots for their Scotlandspeople site - it is so affordable!

 

[Margery]

all depended on the informant's knowledge

Or what the Informant wanted to be known!

 

[peter]

On a connected theme, one has to congratulate the Scots for their Scotlandspeople site - it is so affordable!

It's cheaper for digital copies of BMD entries (compared to England & Wales, but not Ireland), but more expensive for just about everything else. I dislike pay-per-view sites because they inevitably constrain research.

 

[jorghes]

The Victorian BDM uncertified historical certificates are on sale again, back to $20 for March 2020 (apparently to say thank you to family historians.)

That is a saving of $4.50; they are instant downloads (and "certificate" just means you get a scanned copy of the register page). Well worth it for those with mysteries in Victoria! (See link in previous post).