Pre-1837
We genealogists talk a lot about 1837. It only struck me recently how odd this must seem to people unacquainted with genealogy. On the face of it, 1837 seems to be such an odd year to pick.
In reality, there's a reason why genealogists find post-1837 research much easier than pre-1837. 1837 was the year in which civil registration for births, marriages, and deaths was introduced to England and Wales. Pre-1837 is the period before there was such a thing as a birth certificate, and the same for marriages and deaths. This means we have to rely on parish records (the church or chapel registers of what baptisms, marriages, and burials took place in the church) which are often varied in terms of what information is recorded, or even who was baptised/christened. This is also before the first national census in 1841, leaving us with little choice but to get creative with our research if we're going to get any further back. Any records that do exist start getting notoriously vague!
So, pre-1837 is the genealogist's term for the time before modern records, where research can get quite difficult, particularly if your ancestor's lived in an area with poor record-keeping.
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