GRO New Functionality

[Peter Goodey]

This is the current message on the GRO home page

" New functionality available

New functionality to search for GRO Historic Birth and Death Index References online is now available through our website"

For births, mother's maiden name is included even for pre 1911 births.

For deaths, age is included even for pre 1866 deaths

[Megan Roberts]

This is the current message on the GRO home page


For births, mother's maiden name is included even for pre 1911 births.

For deaths, age is included even for pre 1866 deaths

Well spotted Peter. When I was ordering a certificate the other day, I noticed this but dismissed it because the birth index only goes up to 1915 and the death index up to 1957, but as they obviously include addition information they are worth a revisit, so thank you.

Message from Mod added: 21 May 2019
Birth index now extended to 1918 inclusive.
See posts 42 and 43 in this thread.

[Guy Etchells]

GRO launch a limited trial of uncertified copies of BMDs each PDF will cost £6.00p.
More details at
https://anguline.co.uk/ohrn.html

Cheers
Guy

[macwil]

... a limited trial...

From 9th November....
The trial will last for only 3 weeks, but may close earlier (only 45,000 PDFs will be made available at this price). My guess is that those 45,000 PDFs will be sold very, very quickly - which is why I have rushed out this special edition newsletter!
(from https://lostcousins.com/newsletters2/...lnov16news.htm)

[Megan Roberts]

I have had a little play today thinking that it might help me identify some of the missing 8 siblings of my great grandfather. I know there to be 8 missing from his mother's 1911 census return. But unfortunately the combination of Roberts / Griffith(s) in Carnarvon is just too common - over a period between 1865-1880 there are 102 births!!

I did think, quite reasonably that I could whittle the list down, by easily eliminating certain individuals, but then looking at those that I have certificates for I realised that one of them has the wrong mother's maiden name shown, but it is the right certificate - right address, right father's name, right occupation, right mother's first name etc. Mother registered the birth, but she was illiterate. So if one certificate I have has the wrong maiden name, how more would be the same?

The only way I will ever know who they were, and what happened to them is if the registers are fully opened, and I can't see that happening, which is a shame, because they may have been babies or small children, but they would have still have left their mark on my great great grandparents.

[tony vines]

I know that I am about to display my complete and incomprehensible ignorance here so please don't scoff. I have used the GRO site to order certificates for years but have only ever used sites like FreeBMD and findmypast to obtain an index reference. The posts above clearly indicate that the index is available online on the GRO site. I never knew that, but where? How do you get to it?

[tony vines]

Please ignore my post above. While I do not deny my hitherto ignorance I have now found out how to search the GRO indices. For anyone else who was unaware it is necessary to log in (https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/c...es/default.asp) if you already have an account and GRO will require you to confirm by email. If you haven't previously registered for their service you need to do so. Both actions will then take you to a menu where searching the indices is one of the options.

[margarita]

I have used the GRO site to order certificates for years but have only ever used sites like FreeBMD and findmypast to obtain an index reference.

You are not alone. Until this new development it had never occurred to me to look on the GRO site for the references. I suppose the facility to search the indices had always been there - I had just never looked for it. I will certainly use it more often in future.

[Sue Mackay]

You need to go to https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/ and register. If you were previously registered for ordering certificates, enter your details and you will be e-mailed a verification code to start using the new site.

[SueNSW]

Full details in Peter Calver's latest newsletter - https://lostcousins.com/newsletters2/...lnov16news.htm

It's not perfect yet though - very first family I tried to check for siblings on didn't have the man I was looking for listed - he is certainly showing on FreeBMD. There is the option to advise them of discrepancies and omissions though.