Genealogy Chat

Tina, I used to smoke - 35 - 40 years ago - Now I sometimes have one after my Christmas Dinner, and , occasionally when I go away to work in Barcelona (because most Spanish people smoke).!! My husband smokes at least a packet per day, so, as long as you light one, every 15 minutes or so, for a week or two, you can let them sit in the ashtray and wither away BUT then, dont forget to 'stump' them out !! - My husband makes fun of me because when I do have one, i GET FED UP HALF WAY DOWN AND SPEND ABOUT 5 MINUTES STUMPING IT AROUND THE ASHTRAY TRYING TO PUT IT OUT.!! SSSSSoooo, - About 2 weeks should do it, AND, - If you have given up chocolate as well .....'More certs to your elbow' as they say!! Dea x

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhh - I feel a bit 'icky' - Toooooo many malteesers !!!!!!!!!!!! Dea x

Does giving up chocs and sweeets for lent count? I guess I could make lent a little longer this year!! Or maybe I should stop giving in to my kids and save the money they spend for me on a weekly basis---------hey if I did that I would be able to afford the 'Who do you think you are' team to do my tree for me!!!! Carol

You guys are absolutely mad !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Having never bought a cert, (just perved through the computer screen at copies of statutory entries), what is the advantage of ordering a cert? How much do they cost each? Do they charge extra for mailing to New Zealand - do you think? Do you think that because I haven't got the actual certs, that my info so far is flawed? Can you tell I'm a newby? James, way down here in NZ

James 1. what is the advantage of ordering a cert? Sometimes its the only way of ensuring you have the right person. If your ancestor is called Zephaniah Snodgrass-Pendleton, it is probably easy to find his bmd certs, but if he's called John smith then it will be harder to know which cert is the right one. Certs give more information than the indexes, such as addresses, possibly fuller names, occupations etc. 2. How much do they cost each? £7 if you quote the GRO ref and order online - see the webaddress below. 3. Do they charge extra for mailing to New Zealand - do you think? Yes, of course they will! check out prices here: www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificate/index.asp#0 4. Do you think that because I haven't got the actual certs, that my info so far is flawed? Depends. If you are sure the index entries you have found are right, you might be right. But you may not have the right cert in the index. Sometimes you can cross check with info in a census, but not always. nell

nice and succinct Nell...... on the subject of chocolate..... does anyone know if you can get dairy free chocolate??? Yes I know its a bit of a DUMB question, but since I have given up dairy produce ( day 11), i was hoping there might be something suitable.

okay so let me get this straight..... On your instructions I am to buy chocolate, eat loads of it in one go and then suddenly stop. I can't differentiate between this and my normal 'feeling miserable day' - should i be doing it more often than currently to take advantage of the certs offer? I already smoke and don't partuiclarly feel ready to give up now - does it count if I buy twice the number of packets I currently do and stash them in a cupboard over the week so next week I wont have to buy any and can therefore buy some certificates? Should I approach my boss about the economical sense of these actions and say I'm giving up travelling to work for a week to save myself £41 - in which case I could almost buy myself a new certificate everyday whilst pretending to work at home. Awaiting instructions from economical advisers. Zoe

Dairy free chocolate is definitely available. No idea what it tastes like, but Google will show you where to find it. Gwyn

YUK---dairy free choc---having tried the carob version I would suggest edible ants taste better!!! The only problem is you need to fly to south america for those---just think how many certificates that could buy!!!!!!!! Mind the holiday, less the ants may refresh the parts that certs don't , and just think of the tan you caould get : o /, Carol

Oh Grumpy, I am so disappointed. When I read you message the first time, I thought you were saying 'free dairy chocolate', as in Free BMD. Wow, I thought, I could eat the chocolate AND buy the certs. Of course, just like Free BMD, there would always be some bits missing - like only being able to get the very, very large slabs of Galaxy when you really only meant to have a small one. Or no free Thorntons Continental available, but Belgium chocs there instead. Still, I thought, I could live with little difficulties like that. Then I read your message again. Oh, shame. What sorrow. Have had my ration for today so shall just have to go to bed I suppose. Where did I leave those cigarettes? Tina

Trying not to refer to chocolate too much (drool, drool)... James in NZ, could it be that your ancestors came from somewhere like, for example, Scotland? You can indeed look at copies of the certificates online in that case, but for those ancestors who came from England, Wales or Ireland, I'm afraid we still have to order hard copies. Kate.

Having just consumed a year's supply of chocolate (3 x daughter's Mothers Day offerings of Thornton Continental) and not being prepared to give up smoking (because I roll my own, which is a saving of about #30 per week anyway) I have nothing to give up! Oh, I could give up drink I suppose - I HAAAAATE whiskey, so shall give that up, saving myself 12 quid a week, or 14 quid if I can find a dearer brand to give up. If anyone in my family points out that I don't actually drink whiskey, I shall immediately confess to having been a secret tippler all these years of course. Um - don't know how you can do your family tree without actually getting certs. I reckon at least a third of my certs have produced a surprise, including the most annoying one of the mother not being who you confidently assumed she was - a lot can happen between census, you know! And the father not being named either - another false trail if you assumed it was the man she was living with some years later. And the most annoying ever - my 3 x GGF turning out to be illegitimate, but 'adopted' by his Uncle and Aunt unofficially. This means that the previous five generations are wrong! Olde Crone

James - pick me - I can answer that one!! NO - they don't charge us any extra for sending the certs to NZ. SO>>>>>>>the answer is to order as many as you can afford so that you are ahead of the game for when they cotton on to this. The downside is that we wait extra long for them to arrive....and....the postie sometimes leaves them sticking halfway out of the box in the rain, so by the time you get home from work to get the mail in, it's soggy....but I have had them arrive as quickly as 6 days! I'm on a certificate-free diet at the moment, as I'm saving my cents to stay in exhorbitantly expensive UK accommodation on my long-awaited UK trip this August/Sept, and our naughty little kiwi dollar keeps sliding down the graph :-(. Have fun, and order online from GRO. Sue (in NZ)

Hi, Love the idea of this thread however I wont give up chocolate but as easter is coming up I could just eat the kids chocolate (they're too young to know any differnt) so could save a bit there. Can't take up smoking to give it up as my husband hates smokers and would divorce me. May have to think about what he costs me, maybe should take up smoking! LOL. Could someone tell me what site to look at to get Scottish certs on line? Is it very expensive? Thanks Toni PS could luck to those trying to give up to save money.

Yep, you guessed it kate - Scotlands where ALLLLLLLLLL the relies are from BUT with an Irish sounding name like mine (McGuire) I'm expecting to have to jump over to Ireland sometime soon. Thanks Sue, I might just go ahead and order some (how exciting). Seems nice and tidy too to have certs and especially if they have extra bits of info on them :-) Are they typed up? Cause some of the ones I've seen online are really hard to read - hate to get someones occupation wrong. Especially when I found one with the word (illegitimates) directly under Fishworker. Thanks for the clues to happy family hunting - I'm finding it addictive :-) So is it better to order from GRO??? or Scotlandspeople???? Are the same people??? James, It's pouring with rain in New Zealand and England just pipped us for the Gold medal in badmington mixed doubles - sadness.

Oh you lovely people, really needed cheering up today so had a read through and had a really good laugh. Sue, you could always go for cheaper accommodation. I've booked in at the LSE so that I have money left over to order the certs when I go searching at the Family Records Centre, and I'm drooling at the thought of my first visit to Kew.

Mothers Day? What Mothers Day? So far there has been a deafening silence from my children. I realise now of course that I have missed a golden opportunity. What I should have done is dropped some fairly unsubtle reminders a few days back, and then when they turned round and said (as I know they will), 'But Mother, you said you were giving up chocolate so we did not buy you any. And when we buy you flowers you leave them dead in the vase for weeks and weeks.' That is the point where I should have said, 'Buy me a certificate instead. I'll leave you a list of what I want'. Ah me, why do I always have these good ideas too late. Tina (unloved and unwanted)

My latest cert arrived yesterday,19 days after I placed the order.

James - as far as I know there is no point ordering a certificate from Scotland if you have already looked at the image on Scotland's People. I believe it would just be a hard copy of the same thing. But if you are looking for a birth, marriage or death that took place after the cut-off date that they have for the online images of each, you would have to order the certificate. The GRO (England and Wales) is separate from the Scottish GRO, but I would imagine all the Scottish ordering info is somewhere on the Scotland's People site. As I say, though, unless you are after something that is too recent to be on there you wouldn't need to order the cert. I think you can order a copy of some 'Old Parochial Register' entries from Scotland's People where the image is not available online (yet), so if you get far back enough you might end up doing that. But there probably won't be as much information on those as there would be on the civil registration entries. As for Ireland - that is a whole other ball game! Kate.

Sorry can not give up the ciggies, would not recognise the laptop if it wasn't under a cloud of smoke! I am however prepared to give up housework. This will save money on cleaning products so more money for certificates. It has an added bonus of having more time to sit & internet search for more certificates. With some of the amazing cost cutting we have discovered I think Gordon Brown better watch out!!