Australia (New South Wales) BMD Certificates

Hi Editor,

It's been awhile since I posted a query. 

I am going to 'presume' that you may not be familiar with the records for the citation assistance that I am seeking, but I am hopeful that you can maybe give me some guidelines.

My query relates to vital records that are available to purchase in Australia, in this case, in the state of New South Wales, from the Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages. 

Each state here in Australia has their own department that issues certificate for vital records, and this is a link to the NSW authority -  http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/

The above is the official NSW Government Department that issues BDM certificates here in NSW.  I presume they are something like the various State departments in the USA, that do the same.

I am maybe really 'overthinking' the issue, but births-deaths and marriages were normally 'registered' in the district where the situation occurred. That may not have always been the case though, and a registration I suppose could and was made in a different district, i.e. somewhere that was more convenient at the time in regards to where a person was living or had moved to since the event.

I am 'presuming' that copies of those registrations were sent to the Official Government Department, i.e. Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages in the relevant state, who in turn used those records to "produce" a vital record certificate.

My question relates to 'hard copies' of certificates purchased. They are headed with a "registration" number. In regards to birth certificates, they also have a number in the first columm of details. I 'suspect' that this is the 'district' registration number - from their record books.

On a death certificate, the "registration" number is the same (usually, but not always) as the number  in the first columm of the document.   

Oh by the way, did I mention before that it appears to be 'complicated'. !!!

An example of my citation for these records has been to-date, as follows :

New South Wales, birth certificate no. 14180 (1866), John Somerville; Registry of Birth Deaths and Marriages, Chippendale. Or should it be:

New South Wales, Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages, birth certificate no. 14180 (1866), John Somerville.

Should I be including other information? Is the above sufficient?

Regards,

Robyn

 

Submitted byEEon Tue, 07/18/2017 - 11:42

Hello, Robyn, welcome back!

Given that NSW's registry system follows the pattern of the English vital registration system, have you seen EE's 9.48?

 

Submitted byRobyn_62on Fri, 07/21/2017 - 02:04

Hi Elizabeth,

Thanks so much for your reply and suggestion. I had a look at EE 9.48.

Australian certificates definitely follow a similar path as our  English counterparts, but they are not really the same (unfortunately). On the NSW BMD website and on the certificates themselves, they don't "spell" out a volume number, but they do show an entry no. in what I presume is an image copy of the register of the original record. They do however mention the district where the event was registered and the date. Of course I also trying to get my genealogy software (Legacy) to produce something differently, to what it pushes out in its various citation templates. That's not always possible, so I use the override button (alot).

So I have decided to cite these certificate like this.

New South Wales, death certificate (certified copy) no. 008644 (1926), James Somerville; registration 15 June 1926, district Hornsby; Registry of Birth Deaths and Marriages, Chippendale.

I think it kind of covers the general gist that I am citing the event, with a death certificate on file and where ir came from.

Hope so :-)

Best and thank you for your reply. It is appreciated as always.

Robyn

 

 

Submitted byEEon Fri, 07/21/2017 - 11:21

Robyn, it is possible that someone with more experience than you or I in NSW death certificates may be able to point to nuances we've missed; but it seems to me you've captured the essential elements and structured them clearly.