After registering and signing in at https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/Login.asp you will be taken to the following home screen:
By selecting the Search GRO indexes link, you will be offered the following choices between Births and Deaths:
Clicking on the Birth option takes you to a search screen that allows for searches on the following options:
Surname at birth *
First forename
Second forename
Gender *
Mother's maiden name
Years (up to 2 years +/-) *
Quarters
District of birth (a link to a PDF document of registration districts is available)
Volume number
Page number
(* must be selected)
Name options can be searched exactly, phonetically similar, or similar sounding.
Once you click on search, results will appear below, with an option to order the document:
For Death searches, the following fields are available
Surname at death *
First forename
Second forename
Gender *
Age at death (enter 0 for less than 1)
Years (up to 2 years +/-) *
Quarters
District of death (a link to a PDF document of registration districts is available)
Volume number
Page number
(* must be selected)
For marriages, and other birth and death events, including overseas events, you need to use the second option on the original home screen marked Place an Order, which will take you to a separate application page. As before, certificates cost £9.25 each.
Chris
For details on my genealogy guide books, including A Beginner's Guide to British and Irish Genealogy, A Decade of Irish Centenaries: Researching Ireland 1912-1923, Discover Scottish Church Records (2nd edition), Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html.
And the brilliant thing about searching this way is that birth results come up with the mother's maiden name attached! I've just chipped a brick out of a wall back in 1838 without needing to fork out a tenner for the certificate to do so.
ReplyDeleteNow they just need to: a) Extend the search period beyond 2 years back and forward from the year that is entered in the search box. b) Finish the scanning, a big investment needed which surely could be recouped from charging as per ScotlandsPeople. c) Allow the purchase of extracts (as per Scotland) rather than just relatively expensive full copy certificates. This would be great for family history research in the UK, with the relatively high cost of certificates often a barrier to progress, particularly where speculative research is needed. Chris, does the Scottish Government make a profit out of the ScotlandsPeople service? If so maybe it could be an example to the UK Government, new website teething troubles aside which have also just been experienced by the GRO website! I know that the law was changed in England and Wales to allow extracts from certificates to be made to potentially make this happen.
ReplyDelete