English and Welsh GRO PDF certificate service trial returns

The GRO for England and Wales has launched another trial period from today for the ordering of PDF versions of English and Welsh birth and death certificates. Here is the announcement:

General Register Office (GRO) - PDF Extended Pilot

The GRO is piloting a service from 12 October 2017 to provide portable document format (PDF) copies of digitised historical birth and death records. The pilot will run for a minimum of 3 months to enable GRO to assess the demand for this service over a prolonged period.

Applications for each PDF cost £6, must be made online, and include a GRO index reference.

England and Wales records which are available as PDFs in this extended pilot include:

Births: 1837 –1916
Deaths: 1837 –1957

To order records visit https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/default.asp

(With thanks to Michelle Leonard via Twitter)

UPDATE: From the Rootschat website (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=780525.0):

"There is a slight change to the previous trial - once produced, the pdf will be available to download from your account page on the GRO site for a period of time (in the same way that probate service wills are delivered) rather than sent as an email attachment."

(With thanks to AnthonyMMM on Rootschat)

Chris

My next 5 week long Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the OPRs course commences Nov 6th 2017 - details at https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=302. For my genealogy guide books, visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html, whilst details of my research service are at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk. Further content is also published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES.

New English & Welsh GRO birth and death indexes

The General Register Office for England and Wales has launched a new searchable index system for births (1837-1915) and deaths (1837-1957).

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.

GRO Belfast search room reopens after passports pressure

The General Register Office for Northern Ireland has reopened its public search room, having been forced to temporarily close it in recent weeks, such was the demand for birth certificates for Irish passport applications on the back of the Brexit vote.

For the full story visit the Irish News story at www.irishnews.com/news/2016/07/19/news/-high-demand-for-birth-certificates-in-the-wake-of-brexit-610940/.

I have been one of those who has applied for Irish passports, as have my two sons. For details on how we have sought to do so, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/claiming-irish-passport.html.

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including 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.

Certificate of Irish Heritage scheme to end

The Republic of Ireland's Certificate of Irish Heritage scheme (www.heritagecertificate.ie) is to end after August 24th 2015, due to the fact that very few people have wanted to buy them. Since its launch in 2011, just 3000 of the certificates have been sold.

Despite its noble aim to allow those with Irish ancestry to register their family connection to Ireland - similar to our Book of Scottish Connections here (http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/registration/book-of-scottish-connections) - the scheme became something of a shambles after it changed its levels of proof in 2012 which were required to establish such an Irish connection. This was done in a bid to reverse the low take up back then, but as is clear, even this did not work.

My blog post from the time can be read at http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/certificate-of-irish-heritage-shambles.html - it ends with my take on it back then: "I can't help feeling that if it looks like a dead duck, makes no noise like a dead duck, contributes to world peace as much as a dead duck, and swims as badly as a dead duck, then in all probability it is really very likely to be a dead duck...".

The BBC has the story at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33973972.

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including my recently released Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html.

Paving the way to a GRO based England's and Wales' People style service

The London based Society of Genealogists (www.sog.org.uk) is reporting that the Westminster Government has accepted an amendment to its Deregulation Bill which will allow for the publication of information from GRO issued vital registers for births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales, in a manner beyond the issue of a formally certified, and expensive, certificate.

At the moment genealogists in England and Wales are second class citizens within the United Kingdom when it comes to accessing historic records, which cost £10 each to purchase from local superintendent registrars' services, or £9.25 each from the English and Welsh GRO based at Southport (www.gro.gov.uk). By contrast, although official Scottish certificates are £12 each, and Northern Irish certificates are £15 each, there are alternative, and much cheaper means of access - for Scotland, via the ScotlandsPeople website (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk) and the ScotlandsPeople Centre service (www.scotlandspeoplehub.gov.uk), and in Northern Ireland via the GENI service at www.geni.nidirect.gov.uk, the search room facility at the GRONI in Belfast (www.nidirect.gov.uk/gro), as well as a cheap photocopy extract service for pre-1922 BMD records provided by the GRO in the Republic of Ireland (www.welfare.ie/en/pages/general-register-office.aspx).

Commenting on the announcement, the SoG's genealogist Else Churchill said “Having worked for over 15 years to reform the GRO system and to gain better access to this vital information for family historians in non-certified form I am delighted that the Government has at last paved the way for a more efficient and cost effective service encompassing modern technology.” The full announcement, including discussion from the parliamentary proceedings via Hansard, is accessible at www.sog.org.uk/news/article/gro-information-on-births-marriages-and-death-doesnt-have-to-on-expensive-c.

Whilst this announcement does not in itself create an England's and Wales' People type service, it does remove the barrier to such a provision being made. For too long those seeking ancestral records from England and Wales have been ignored in seeking a solution, and should no longer be discriminated against on economic grounds simply because they wish to note who their ancestors were. It will be interesting to see how - and indeed, if - this develops further.

(With thanks to the SoG and the FFHS)

Chris

For details on my range of genealogy guide books please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. To commission me for genealogical research, please visit my research site at www.scotlandsgreateststory.co.uk.

Don't pay more for a certificate than necessary

Or just £9.25 from the GRO...

I often complain about the GRO in Belfast charging £15 for a birth, marriage or death certificate, the highest rate charged within the United Kingdom. But there is a far worse offender in the UK - and it's Ancestry.

Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) offers indexes to English and Welsh births, marriages and deaths, and effective they are for the most part too. But on several parts of its site (not least after each index entry) it also advertises that you can purchase copies of the same records - at a staggering rate of £22.99 each. Sterling... I asked them once why they do this - "administrative costs" was the answer. Ancestry has many great and wonderful services and offerings on its site - but this is not one of them.

You absolutely do not need to pay such extraordinary costs for such certificates. An English or Welsh BMD certificate costs just £9.25 if ordered from the General Register Office for England and Wales, which is based in Southport. To save your bank balance, you can simply take the reference you find on Ancestry (or Findmypast.co.uk, FreeBMD.org.uk, FamilyRelatives.com or TheGenealogist.co.uk!) and visit the GRO site instead at https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/Login.asp to place your order. You need to register with the site first before placing an order.

Note that the GRO is currently advising the following, no doubt because of the current transmission of Who Do You Think You Are generating the usual seasonal interest:

Current Despatch Times

Customers may wish to be aware that GRO is currently receiving a high volume of certificate orders, which is impacting on delivery times for some standard orders. GRO apologises for any inconvenience this may cause to our customers and is working to return to published delivery timescales as soon as possible.

The priority service remains unaffected and orders placed via this service will be despatched on the next working day from receipt of order, if received before 4.00pm.

If you order through the GRO, you can save your hard earned pennies and buy Tiny Tim a big fat turkey at Christmas, as well as provide him with his nice new family history!

Chris

My latest book, Discover Scottish Civil Registration Records, is now available from http://www.gould.com.au (print) and http://www.gen-ebooks.com/unlock-the-past.html (ebook), whilst Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet is available at http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Irish-History-on-the-Internet/p/3889/. My next Pharos Scottish course, Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the OPRs, starts Nov 13th - see http://pharostutors.com.

Local BMD cert prices to increase

A huge thanks to Sharon Hartas from UKBMD (www.ukbmd.org.uk) for a tip on Twitter that I have since followed up and confirmed. Sharon had tweeted that local certificate prices in England and Wales were set to increase from April 1st 2012 to £10 each, but was unsure of the GRO situation. I have called the GRO in Southport and have obtained the following information:

From April 1st there are indeed a couple of revisions kicking in to the statutory legislation for local certificates.

• If you register a birth, marriage or death at a local registrar's office, the cost to obtain a certificate at the time of registration is to rise from the current £3.50 to £4.
• For historic certificates - i.e. those that we use for our genealogical research - the price is to rise from £9 to £10.
• There is to be no change for the cost of certificates obtained from the national GRO for England and Wales at Southport, which remains at £9.25.

It is worth bearing in mind that local certificates will have a statutory charge of £10 - but in the past many local authorities have gone beyond the statutory price with additional costs for 'admin'. So it is possible that for some areas you may actually pay more.

This is a bit of a game changer, in that local certs were previously cheaper than those obtained nationally, by a small factor of 25p. Now they will be 75p dearer. It should be noted though that locally obtained certs are often more accurate, with no chance for copying errors to creep in before being sent to the central GRO. Some entries are also missing from the national indexes. To search for indexes to the records held locally, visit UKBMD - and as Sharon stated on Twitter, it may be worth getting those orders in now, if you wish to order from your local office, before the prices go up.

(With thanks to Sharon @sharonhartas)

UPDATE: Apparently these changes are due to the Registration of Births Deaths and Marriages (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2012, laid before Parliament on 9th March.

(With thanks to John Reid at http://anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.com)

Chris

British GENES on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES and Twitter @chrismpaton

Scotland's Greatest Story research service www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk and www.facebook.com/ScottishGenealogyResearch