Genealogy Chat

But Glen it's not that hard to find the correct offices (especially now you have a good a-z list of them). You can also go on Genuki and put the place you are looking for in the search box, follow the links and it will tell you where the local office is for that place Alternatively go here http://www.fhsc.org.uk/genuki/reg/regoff.html#619 for a complete and comprehensive listing of all registry offices

Hi Although it would be quicker for me to pick up most of my certificates from the local office, 5 mins walk from me, I have found that some of the staff are not that helpfull and appear to begrudge my requests. That's why I now order all my certificates through GRO even though it does take some time to arrive. Paul

Paul You are right, there are one or two offices who do begrudge family historians making them work but thankfully they are in the minority (Harrogate being one of them - where I live). But the rest of them are absolutely fantastic and I cannot sing their praises highly enough. Snowdrops

Paul I'd be tempted to play the grumpy old man The staff are employed by the local authority,you pay towards the wages and ofices through tax,you deserve the respect of those staff,they are after all employed to deal with requests such as those you may make. Contact the head of the department that is responsible for them. Glen

They are lucky if they can afford to be grumpy - my local Register Office has just cut staff hours AGAIN because the Staff dont have enough to do. I ALWAYS use local unless I absolutely HAVE to use the GRO. I ALWAYS ask for a photocopy and have got it every time with two exceptions - both times they phoned to tell me the register was too fragile to photocopy and did I therefore still want the certs? Various staff at various local ROs have gone to endless trouble for me, searching on the vaguest of information, phoning me to ask me if I think such and such is right and not charging a penny for any of this. And - I have six certs from local offices, which never made it to the GRO - absolutely unheard of, say the GRO, but nevertheless I've got SIX. OC

OK Glen next ones come from the local reg office. Rod ps whats one twentyfifth of fourteen pounds!!!

Glenn as an regular user of my local studies library, i can say without dought, the tv programe hardly made any difference to GRO times a few months ago, yes the first series the library was bursting with newbies, who mostly soon dropt off when they realised that searching for hours on a fische machine was involved, then we had the second series and the Gro backlog, the library was dead and quiter than at any time in the last 3 years, but i think seasoned researchers had now got the GRO indexs free on Ancestry, which would have cost hundreds to go through a family line at 1837, i for several weeks was ordering 10 to 20 certs a week, it is this that caused the back log, not the tv program and i dought any other series will have much impact again.

Salty Its 56p. OC

Salty It's not enough

Sent a postal aplication to Lincoln on Wednesday afternoon for a birth cert,got my cert this morning,all lovely and scanned. Now i know the name for one of my grandfathers and the GRO marriage cert looks nothing like the right name,only one letter was anywhere near!! Glen

I wish I could use the local office. I called them before ordering from GRO. Problem is i'm in the states. They don't take credit cards. I'd have to paypal money to my brother and have him send the request with a pounds sterling cheque.... too much hassel, it was so simple with the GRO But Glen I promise, when I come home for a visit i'll order from the local RO. Helen

Sorry to ask the question but what does WDYTYA stand for ? Sheila

Sheila its the BBC programme 'Who do you think you are' where celebraties have their tree done for them by experts Glen any chance of nudging up your records office thread for those of us not sure where to start

Yes I use the local offices and they are much quicker and I like the fact that they return your money if they dont find the right match. I have even received a telephone call from form one of the offices to discuss my application as they have not been able to find the right one. After talking with them them found what I wanted. Gwen

Lorraine--- Thanks, being out of town has it's drawbacks Sheila

I found a birth and death in Rotherham on Ancestry. When I looked at Rotherham's online Marriage and Birth Directory, they are not there, (it says the registry is up to date.) So I've emailed them to ask who will have the records, thought maybe Derbyshire (their records are not on line yet)...waiting for reply. They seem to change boundries, so sometimes you don't know which office has the record. Another marriage I found on Ancestry said Stockton, but when I looked at Stockton's Directory......the cert is at Middlesbrough. It's sometimes confusing It maybe would have been easier just to have gone straight to GRO Jean

Hi David, I promise I'm not stalking you.... Just to clarify, there is a difference between a Record Office and a Register Office. For example if you have an ancester born in Cheltenham, you can write to the Superintendant Registrar at the Chelteham Register Office ( not the Record Office), and order a copy of the certificate. They are also quite useful if you're unsure of an exact date, as they will do a (limited) search for the event. Hope this helps, Louise

Lots of local record offices don't take credit cards and living abroad I can't send a check. My last cert was ordered from the GRO on the 8th august and arrived in France on the 12th. I've never had to wait more than 10 days at any time. Maybe I'm just lucky or there's a direct postal service from Southport to France. Of course, next time I'm over I'm looking forward to spending some time in the Wigan records office. Anyone been there? Taking this opportunity to thank again all you kind people who have lots of patience and lots of know-how and are always ready to help in the search for lost rellies. Patricia

David, glad you weren't offended, didn't mean to imply anything personal...just thought the tip might help some Newbies. regards, Louise :)))

Sorry if it looks like i'm hogging the board.(all my threads are towards the top with this post) The threads mentioned have been nudged,anyone who needs them and hasn't bookmarked them is more than welcome to do so. The threads can also be found by entering 'the a-z' in the thread search,all three will come up as a match (clever you see,one search three results) Sometimes i sound anti GRO,that isn't true but i do prefer to use a local office unless it can't be avoided.I realise that not everyone can do so. I hope that the threads are useful to everyone regardless of how and where they order certs,sometimes a local office does take some searching for but the results are worth the work (for me personally anyway) Glen