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  1. #1
    Starting to feel at home Creighton's Avatar
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    Default Preview BMD certificates before purchase

    Greetings
    I will assume that perhaps this has been addressed before, but I cannot see where, so apologies if I am covering old ground. I have recently purchased two birth certificates and found the price has gone up considerably. I also notice that one cannot ask for reference checking anymore and after searching for a reason for this, I did find their lame excuse on the GRO website. So now I have paid out £9.25 for one of the certificates that was an incorrect one, where previously I could have had reference checking done and lost just a fraction of the price for a wrong person. What a waste of hard earned money! I shall not be requesting anymore BMD certificates now, and consequently wondered if there was any way where one can view the entry, somewhere, before one committed to purchasing a copy. I know one can view the indexes but surely there must be a way to view the actual entries, as one can with the Scotlandspeople website, and also subscription sites like Ancestry and Findmypast where you may view the censuses and some parish records. Surely there is somewhere where you can view the BMD entries before purchasing a copy. Or is that just an anomaly currently with the way things are set up.

    I have been absent from the forum for quite some time due to work commitments abroad and family issues, but I see a revamped site which is nice, but now have to learn to navigate again .

    Creighton

  2. #2
    Brick wall demolition expert!
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    When the GRO system changed last year, they removed reference checking. With the new system, there are two ways you can order certificates from the GRO.
    1. You can order a certificate using the GRO index reference number
    2. You can use an alternative method which they call their "research service", where you do NOT specify the GRO index number.

    This second method allows you to order a certificate and specify certain details, such as parents names on a birth certificate. It has the advantage that they will search the year you specify and one year either side of that looking for a match for the details you have provided. The best part is that if they fail to find a match then they refund ALL of your money.

  3. #3
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    Further to the above ...

    There are a few things you should be aware of. When using the second method as described above, the GRO will only check up to six certificates when looking for a match. Thus if you have a common name, you may get a refund and an email stating that 'no match has been found', but this does not mean that the certificate does not exist.

    For example, supposing you are looking for the death certificate of a Jenkin Jenkins who died 1855 +/-1 in Merthyr Tydfyl and you specify his name, age, occupation and location. Well, there may be far more than six Jenkin Jenkins who died over those three years in that area and the GRO will only check up to six. An email stating that 'no match has been found' can be misleading, since you may then believe you have ruled out the years 1855 +/-1 and falsely conclude that he died outside this time-frame.

  4. #4
    Starting to feel at home Creighton's Avatar
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    Your information is most helpful olliecat and I shall bear this in mind if I ever decide to use their 'service' again. I still hope that someone can answer my query about being able to view online or physically go somewhere to view the actual entries of the BMD's, and then be able to say 'yes - that's the one I want a copy'. As I stated earlier, the Scotlandspeople site let you view the image for a very modest fee, surely there must be a way that this can be done for 'English/Welsh' entries - otherwise there is a disparity between the services offered withi the UK, which can't be right? Can it?

  5. #5
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    Also they will not always take into account slight variations in spelling. I spent ages looking for an ancestor with a common name and all searches came back not found. When I eventually decided that he MUST have been born where I thought he was I ordered a previously rejected certificate to find that it was indeed the one I was after. The mothers name I had given as Elenaor (as on census) but it had been recorded as Ellenor on the certificate.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Creighton View Post
    I still hope that someone can answer my query about being able to view online or physically go somewhere to view the actual entries of the BMD's, and then be able to say 'yes - that's the one I want a copy'.
    Where there is some doubt about an entry it's often more satisfactory to request a copy from a local register office. Their charge is supposed to cover a search of up to 5 years, and is refundable if the correct entry isn't found. I've often found that the staff are willing to check against things like marital status, occupation, where a person lived etc, and because of their local knowledge they are generally much better placed than the GRO to winkle out the correct entry.

    Having said that, there are a number of register offices which are very slow with FH enquiries, or reject them altogether. Payment can sometimes be tricky - there's one in the London area which recently told my wife that for an enquiry by post the only payment they could accept was a postal order, which they would return if the search was unsuccessful. Not much use, though: the Post Office confirmed to us that they couldn't issue a refund for an unused postal order, so what could we do with one made out to the London Borough of xxxx?

    Local register offices are also supposed to make their indexes available to the public: some are available online via the UKBMD site, or you can in theory make an appointment and pay a fee to view them in person - but again, I gather that some offices are more willing to arrange this than others. And with any local office query, bear in mind that marriage searches in particular may be impractical if the index hasn't been computerised, since there's a register for each church, and staff are understandably unable to look through all of them to find a possible match.

    Arthur

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Creighton View Post
    As I stated earlier, the Scotlandspeople site let you view the image for a very modest fee, surely there must be a way that this can be done for 'English/Welsh' entries - otherwise there is a disparity between the services offered withi the UK, which can't be right? Can it?
    I know of no such site similar to Scotlandspeople where you can view English/Welsh BMD certificates online.
    You may be able to view an original parish register marriage entry on a site as Ancestry, or from an LDS film. Also, some counties run their own online BMD indexes and if you are lucky they include additional information, such as age at death for pre-1866 death certificates or the mother's maiden name for pre-1911 birth certificates.

    There was talk a while ago of the GRO implementing a new system (similar to Scotlands People) but I think it came to nothing.

  8. #8
    Nicolina
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    I totally agree about using local ROs where possible. I have used both York and Hull and have been amazed by their reactions. I've telephoned in the morning and collected the correct certificates in the afternoon. Not only that but they were scanned copies of the originals and, in the case of my great grandfather's second marriage, the Registrar even managed to tell me the bride's suname which was illegible (to me). Neither office could have been more helpful.
    They were also cheaper than those ordered from the GRO.

  9. #9
    Allanah
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    I won't complain re the cost of the certificates from the UK after ordering 3 Australian ones at a cost of $105=65pounds. Like most people I complained when the prices went up last year but not any more.

    Allanah

  10. #10
    Mike Fry
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    Quote Originally Posted by olliecat View Post
    I know of no such site similar to Scotlandspeople where you can view English/Welsh BMD certificates online.
    You may be able to view an original parish register marriage entry on a site as Ancestry, or from an LDS film. Also, some counties run their own online BMD indexes and if you are lucky they include additional information, such as age at death for pre-1866 death certificates or the mother's maiden name for pre-1911 birth certificates.

    There was talk a while ago of the GRO implementing a new system (similar to Scotlands People) but I think it came to nothing.
    People should be aware that the PR images of marriages to be found on Ancestry (mainly London) are for those marriages that took place in Church. You will not find images for those marriages that took place in a Register Office.

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