Civil Registration of births, marriages and deaths (known as "Vital Records" in some countries) started on 1 July 1837 for England and Wales.
For further information see Civil Registration in England and Wales.

Here is a map showing the 1851 Registration Districts of Wales..  The Map is taken from The Religious census of 1851 : A Calendar of the returns relating to Wales, Vol 11, North Wales. Ed. by Ieuan Gwynedd Jones, UWP, 1981

The UK BMD web site "provides 2558 links to websites that offer on-line transcriptions of UK births, marriages, deaths and censuses. A wide range of other indexes and transcriptions are also available for most counties, these may include parish records, wills, monumental inscriptions etc. "

The Registration Districts appropriate to particular towns/parishes etc have been listed on a county basis on UK BMD.

• It should be noted that Registration Districts are/were based not on parishes per se but on the official administration unit below county level.
• So in some cases the parish definition used on Genuki i.e ancient parishes, will result in one of our parishes not appearing on the above list simply because it is an ecclesiastical parish and not categorised as a civil parish.
• An example of such a parish is that of Llangamarch in Brecknockshire which was an ecclesiastical parish, so it doesn't appear on the Brecknockshire section of the above list of parishes/townships etc  under its RD i.e Builth but its two townships/hamlets of Treflis and Penbuallt do.

Demography of Wales (Wikipedia)

The records of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales are held by the General Register Office which is part of the UK Identity and Passport Service. The records themselves are only available in the form of certified copy certificates. The printed (and in some cases, hand written) indexes to the records have, historically, been available to the public but have now been withdrawn. Microfiche copies are avaiable in many locations and images of these indexes are also available through several web sites.

For further details see the Civil Registration sections of the England or Wales pages.

Records for Scotland are different and are at:

The General Register Office for Scotland
New Register House
Princess Street
Edinburgh
EH1 3YT

For further details see the Civil Registration section of the Scotland page.

Irish records have their own system as well. The records of births, marriages and deaths for all of Ireland up to 1921, and for Eire since 1921 are held at:

Register General
Joyce House
8/11 Lombard Street East
Dublin 2

Records for Northern Ireland since 1921 are at:

Oxford House
49/55 Chichester Street
Belfast
BT1 4HL

Wales was largely conquered by the English in the 14th Century, and was officially united with England in 1535. King James VI of Scotland inherited the throne of England (as James I) in 1603, but the two countries remained separate entities until the Act of Union in 1707 forming 'Great Britain'. Ireland had been claimed by the English Kings since the 12th Century but was not officially joined to Great Britain until 1801. Ireland was given independence in 1921 as the Irish Free State (later called 'Eire'), but the counties of Ulster opted out and (as Northern Ireland) remain part of the United Kingdom.

So, today, the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' includes 'Great Britain', which in turns includes England, Scotland and Wales.

The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are 'Crown Dependencies' which are technically outside the United Kingdom and have their own local legislatures. This is course is the offical version. You will find many people referring to 'England' when they actually mean 'Britain' or the 'UK'.

Contributions by:

John Pritchard

Changes For This Version (1.1 - 1995/07/31)

Added location of Irish and Scottish records. Added explanation of the relationship between the various parts of the country.