Genealogy Chat

Can some kind person on here help me with a query, I am trying to oder a certificate for a boy who was born to a unmarried Mother, I have a rough idea of the year give or take couple, and the area.
There are several possible matches that have come up, now if order some of these, if I remember correctly I can ask if they only send the certificate if the Mother name comes up as ........ ..........
Does anyone know the costs incurred in them looking, I know it is 9.25 but if they have to check several others to find the correct one, do you know what they charge for other searches ?
Thanks for your time :O)

They dont do checking points now . stopped it when they put up the price to £9.25.

have read though that if you order without the GRO ref and give the info ie mums name then they will look at the records for the right one. will only do a 3 year search though and the cost is more than £9.25 I believe

if you pick one of the possibles and specify the mother's name on the application if it does not match your fee will be refunded. They only check the ref supplied by you and do not search.

If the 1st does not match you can then order the next etc. Long-winded but cheapest.

Is there a chance you could find a baptism on-line for the child which may help you? There are several parish clerks sites and familysearch, also freereg

Hi Shirley

Thanks for getting back to me on this one, a friend this she may have had 2 brothers adopted out, it would be too recent to view parish records :O/
I thought going a couple of years before her birth we could find the most likely ones and then eliminate the other ones by giving the mother name as well.
Guess I will have to phone them to see, as there would be a long wait to order the one at a time ;-)
Thanks once again for your help :-)

As this is a possible living person is he older than 50? as anything more recent they may want to know exact date of birth ect before issueing it

Hi Jax

Yes they should be ,but I know when I ordered my AS birth cert she was under 50, they phoned me to ask who I was, but then sent it out to me,

Local Certificates for historical purposes:


From 1st April 2012 birth, marriage and death certificates purchased from LOCAL register offices will increase in price from £9.25 to £10.00

Certificates purchased from the GRO for England and Wales will remain at £9.25.

To register a birth, marriage or death will increase from £3.50 to £4.00

Birmingham Register office online service
is now available ( April 2012 ) to purchase Birth , Marriage and Death Certificates.
My personal preference are those purchased from a Local Register office as these are scans of the ORIGINAL certificate that includes our ancestors own handwriting.
Purchasing certificates from local / district offices cost £10.00

The cost of a certificate from the GRO remains is £9.25.
These certificates are hand written / COPIED by present day staff, so possible that errors could occur.

The GRO has set the prices for Districts offices.

Regards,

Archives

The same applies for any cert where you don't have the GRO Ref. Just put 01/01yyyy as the date of the event plus as much info as you know to be correct and they will search for three years - yyyy and one either side. They issue the first cert that matches the info you have provided, and then stop looking.. Costs you nothing if they can't find a match. Only put info i.e. mothers name, fathers name etc when you are reasonably certain it is correct.

Delivery can take up to 28 days, rather then the usual week.

Incidentally, not all local registers have scans of the originals containing ancestors signatures. In very many case i.e. marriages which took place elsewhere, such as at a church, they only have a transcribed copy with no original signatures. There are exceptions though - we were married in the UR church were it was practice for the parties to actually sign not just the church register but also the copies sent to the register office and handed to the bride and groom, but I believe this is the exception, rather than the rule.