Genealogy Chat

If you are querying delivery of certificates worth noting email received today regarding subject content of emails to ensure personal attention Important Notice : ---------------------------- This is our busiest time of year (January to April) and our service to customers is currently being affected by exceptionally high levels of demand. We are working hard to ensure that we reply to your e-mail enquiries as soon as possible. We thank you for your continued patience and will contact you shortly Please note that orders of more than one certificate are currently being despatched as single applications. Customers may therefore receive their order in separate envelopes. This is a temporary measure to enable us to increase efficiency in processing orders. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Please note that our Priority Service is not affected and all priority orders are continuing to be despatched on time. This is an automatic response that contains information about the records held by Certificate Services and tells you what options are available to you if you wish to purchase birth, death and marriage certificates. PLEASE NOTE : NO FURTHER ACTION WILL NOW BE TAKEN ON YOUR MAIL. If you would like to send us further e-mails, to avoid receiving our initial auto-response again, please make sure you include the letters GQ , with a space on either side, in your subject line. You will receive a personal response. I resent my email querying delivery time for certificates ordered begiining April with 'GQ' in subject and received response saying will respond in next few days. Linda

Hi Linda Everything's automated now - I don't know if real people still work in these offices... (I was trying to work out what you resented - until I worked out that you had just sent it again...LOL, I guess you resented their reply though!!) sarah :-)

Nearly 1,000 people work at the GRO at Smedley Hydro. The majority of these are working to provide our copy certs! Merry

Merry, BLIMEY!! 1000 people!!! What do they all do? It obviously isn't as automated as I thought!! sarah :-)

Well, when you send in your request for a cert they have to go and dig out the film with the entry on it. They have around 110,000 films stored. At any one time up to 4,000 film are being worked on....finding the correct film and then reeling through for the correct reference numbers and taking the copies of the required frames from the film. Then putting the film away (in the right place!!!) There is a lot of sorting out of the requests in order to process all the orders that will be on one film together....I expect this is now done by computer, but was manual five years ago. Merry

Sarah Certainly wasn't too happy!! Merry Glad we're all doing such a fine job keeping them busy and in work! Linda

LOL Linda!! They occasionally have an open day at Southport.......I would love to see what it's like. Having worked in an office for 20 years I have every sympathy for the poor staff there. Apparently, they work their socks off - esp the more junior people! Merry

What baffles me is how they can say that by sending out orders in individual envelopes can improve efficiency ? Surely, by completing a whole order - whether for 1, 2 or 20 certs, and sending them all in the same envelope will cut down on expenses and time ? ... and may eventually have a knock on effect for prices ? ... ( I hasten to add that I enjoy opening more than one envelope !!) One person concentrating on one complete order is surely more efficient than doing each certificate as if it's a seperate order ? Oh well ... I'm sure they know what they are doing ! they get enough practice ! Elaine ;-)

Thanks Merry, I will go to bed a bit more knowledgeable tonight! I'm really surprised that they have to do all that legwork though! you'd've thought that by stopping that for say, a fortnight (well, maybe a bit more), and getting everything on computer (1000 people working on it) that they could be more efficient afterwards... s'pose we should be grateful for the jobs that are kept though. Sarah :-)

Some certs that I ordered beginning April expected posting date 8 May arrived on 4 and 5 May - all in seperate envelopes. I salute all the people who work in GRO who must dread the time another series of WDYTYA comes on screen and I believe that at times of heavy demand they are working till late at night and week-ends. I don't know how they operate but having spoken to Customer Services on a few occasions I do know that they are looking at same records screen as you see on 1837online.

Elaine, I think the problem is....most people don't ask for all the same type of cert from the same year and Q. If they did, these might be done by the same person using one film. (One film contains either all of, or a part of one Q's births, marriages or deaths), and you might find they would be keen to shove them in one envelope. But if you have several dozen orders to do for (say) Births 1860 Q1 and one of your several hundred colleagues is doing Deaths for 1881 Q3 and another colleague is doing Marriages for 1900 Q4.....and then someone wants you to find those other two members of staff, in order to put three certs (one from each member of staff) into one envelope.....you can imagine how long that would take to organise (and anything that takes a long time costs a lot of money in staff hours)! I'm only amazed they EVER send them in one envelope! Merry

Merry Can't remember the dates now, didn;t take a lot of notice as it's far too far for me to travel LOLOL, but the GRO are having two open days in the near future. If you go to the 'front page' of their site the dates and times are listed. Regards Looby

If they were to send all the certs you ordered in one envelope, they'd have to hold up one of them to find the others, keeping your envelope safe (amongst lots of others) and then dig it out to add the extra certs. I know it seems inefficient to send them separately, but can assure you it is quicker. The easiest/quickest/cheapest way isn't the most obvious. Whatever the cost of several envelopes and postage, it will be cheaper than the time of the staff concerned. nell

Found the dates for you: The Open Days will take place on Saturday 24 June and Saturday 1 July 2006 from 10am until 5pm. Looby

Looby, thank you.... I have just looked to see how far it is.......500 miles round trip......Hmmmm..........Maybe they could release a video??! LOL Merry

This is still a ' hit & miss ' arrangement by the looks of it. My last certificates arrived within the quoted time frame and were all in one envelope - 2 x birth and 1 x death. Probably depends on who is dealing with it.

All three certificates arrived this morning, in separate envelopes, each with notes that says processing other orders separately and would be sent within next 10 days! Could be the post I suppose. Linda