Genealogy Chat

Hi I sent my through the post about the 2nd april, i sent for 3 and they arrived today

Most of my awaited certs arrived today- all in separate envelopes! - all sent first class at 31p each! But it is nice to have them! The note with them suggest it's a 5 day wait for the rest. O - and have had two partial refunds- one incorrect mum, and other because ref is incorrect. Odd- am sure I checked it beforehand. Nemmind- I have some new names to investigate! Rosi

I have to agree,,,the photo copies of the orignal ones are best,,,I get a real thrill from seeing the signitures of my ancestors,

Mine were ordered on 28th March - despatch date 19th April. Alas it seems impossible to order direct if you want London RO ones - I always get told to use ONS. :( Rosi

Hi Everyone, the GRO seem to be a little erratic at the moment BUT improving. I sent for certs in Feb, due delivery mid March and they were delivered Saturday 1st April. SIX weeks. I ordered some certs 16th March; due date 6th April. They came on the 7th April (one missing so I emailed them and it arrived the day after). Ordered two more 4th April; due date 27th April................I am confident and have quite enough to investigate at the moment. Good luck with all yours, Joan

I don't really like the re-written ones, I like to see the original handwriting........................and who knows...... they make make a mistake Linda

I alway order mine through the relevent regiser offices, Sometimes they are photocopies of the originals and other times a written copy, I always get mine back within a week,,and last week i even had one by return post, What are the advantages of ordering through the gro?

i ordered 4 on the 16th march and was given dispatch date of 7th april, 3 arrived on saturday the 8th--not bad---but i'm still waiting for the 4th!!!!!!!!

I ordered mine over 3 weeks ago.... and I'm still waitng .... maybe tomorrow ..... lol

HOORAY, it is here! Now opened up another can or worms!!! Off to birth register again. All good stuff though. Happy hunting to all. Pam.

All the other times I've ordered more than one certificate at one time they've come on the same day, although in separate envelopes. This time I ordered three and they came with about four days in between each post. Linda

Ordered mine on 7 March from GRO (London I thought) but arrived today postmarked from Southport, Merseyside. Very interesting reading tho'.

I had a strange thing happen - after waiting over 3 weeks for a batch of certs to arrive, I received a £4 refund on one of them with an email saying it could not be found. I rang them up and after a bit of investigating it turned out that the vol number had been incorrectly transcribed on Ancestry but the chap said he would pass this over to another dept. because it was something that should have easily been picked up on as they would know which volume number goes with which area. I said maybe because they were so busy they didn't bother... (This was on a Friday). I rang again on the Monday and spoke to someone else who told me that no way would they be able to issue the cert even if they did find it now because the refund had already gone through and it was my fault for stating incorrect vol number and that with over 20,000 orders last month (!!!) they can't be double-checking everything. She said 'if you want it you'll have to reorder it'. Good thing I didn't rush and place the order again - a week later the cert has arrived!! So I got a cert plus a partial refund!! You know that saying 'The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing...' LOL

My cert arrived this morning ordered 8th March!!

Just had email from London Met Archives saying they have medical records of year my ggm died in Friern Barnet Asylum. Will go on to that now while waiting for certificates to arrive!!!! One Cert I am waiting for is ggm (no.2) who married ggf the quarter after first ggm died in Asylum and ggm (no.2) was 7 months pregnant with ggf's child. The plot thickens!!!!! Pam.

Hello. Thanks again for replies. Still waiting! Never mind. Pam.

The GRO website is currently dispalying the following message: Service Announcement 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. Although we are working hard to ensure certificates are despatched as soon as possible we expect these problems to continue until after Easter. Maureen

Derek, that is something I didn't think of. My daughter applied for a passport recently and, as you say, had to have a full birth certificate. I ordered it from the local registrar's office and it was here within 2 days. Amazing. Let us all hope the wait is worth it when we receive our certificates. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later too. Pam.

I am still waiting for one from February. They already debited my card too. I hope the wait is worth it, if it is the right one it will open many doors so I am being as patient as I can.

hi, is there a difference between GRO certs and local office ones? i only ask because i order all mine through the relevant office and always get them within one week, the last one i dealt with was cheshire and they told me that due to new rules anyone who applies for a new passport has to have a full birth cert and its this that is causing a lot of the backlog, hope this helps, derek,