Genealogy Chat

Jumping on your thread Glen - left a message for you earlier - will nudge it up!

Thanks Elaine You found me. Glen

Im with Rachel Anderson. I have 3 children under 8, including a baby. I don't drive, and my husband works. None of my family live anywhere near us. We're living in Coventry but my ancestors come from Notts and Derbys...it can be so hard finding time, and childcare, to get up there. Ive never visited a records office yet, although I really want to. Its so much easier to order from the GRO, generally speaking you don't have to wait too long for certs. Thanks for reminding me about the programme Glen, I'll order a cert I need today, before the mad rush gets underway.

When ordering certs you need the REGISTER office,(sorry to shout),the Records/Archives are for the parish registers. A local register office can often take online orders,99% take phone orders and they all take a postal application. You don't have to apply in person or attend the office,at worst you have to drop a letter in the post. I know i keep banging on about local offices,but they are just as easy (if not easier) to use than the GRO. The hardest thing is placing the first order.....Which office?,do they take payment by plastic?How do i apply? A quick google answers the most often asked questions,and you can speak to a person on the phone,not the big corporate GRO(polite though they may be) Glen

Another point to remember is that the GRO on-line service is an automated system. They have production targets to meet etc and work to a strict set of rules, to speed everything up.There is no allowance made for a bit of humming and haa-ing etc. Before they had this automated on-line service, their certs were £8.50 as a standard price and their search fees were phenomenal - well, a lot, anyway. I stopped using them years ago, when despite paying a search fee of, I think, £30, for three years, they could not find my 2 x GGF's marriage. I eventually found it in the LOCAL office and sent the GRO a copy, asking them why they had not been able to find it. Some six weeks later I got a reply saying they did not appear to have this marriage, it had not been reported by the local Register Office at the time and 'this is very rare, almost unheard of' Since then I have found another five events not registered with the GRO but all sitting in the LOCAL Registry Office - none of the events are either the first or the last in any given quarter and the local RO states that they WOULD have been reported to the GRO because of the stringent checking procedures which were in place in Victorian times. So, to recap - use GRO if you know EXACTLY what you want and there is no doubt. Local RO if you arent sure, or even if you are - ask for a photocopy and you'll probably get it - there is no space on the GRO automated order form to request a photocopy! (And it wont be your ancestors writing anyway, just the writing of some long-dead victorian clerk) OC

Here here OC,I had to go for a marriage cert recently from the GRO,can't be sure of the father of the groom (Jim or maybe John) it is impossible to tell. One call to a local registrar coming up tomorrow.Let's hope the answer is the one i want. Glen

N

Glen you have convinced me to try again with local offices. Have just ordered 4 certs from the GRO so the next lot I order I will go local. Just hope they do not come folded in small envelopes again!! JoJo