Genealogy Chat

thank you Joy have spoken on t´other

:-D

For Renes :)


Patricia - the timing varies from office to office; try emailing / ringing them.


The cost increased recently to £10.00 for certificates ordered from a local register office. It remains at £9.25 from the GRO.

Thank you for some very sound advice, I have only ever ordered from GRO but will certainly be contacting more of the local offices in future,
Would it be possible to visit and collect on the same day?
Cheers
ps Would the fees be different from local to GRO?

Yes they will send certs abroad and no extra charge for postage.

Will they send certs abroad?
Heatherg

Re "Have other GR members found the above scenario not receiving reply to e-mail?"
- In the main, I have only contacted register offices in Suffolk and Buckinghamshire; they plus Wandsworth, Bromley and Poole were very helpful.

Nudge

Hi I emailed Islington but no reply so I rang up, the man says no certificates over 100 years and that most of them are done by GRO and they have not got enough staff! So I emailed GRO but I have to send for the both certificates, I do not mind but I reckon they will be both wrong I just wanted to speak to somebody to clarify the situation, so I will get one certificate with Male Adams and one for William Jeffrey, correct one being William Adams, now I know it could have been the family who gave the wrong information but can you get this changed Sheila in Spain

Thanks for the tip I shall apply more locally now

Thank you Barry but I am unsure if there are two certificates or one Male Adams and William Jeffrey I really need confirmation for payment etc Any ideas anybody Sheila

When this thread was started by Joy five years ago, the use of e-mail to contact register offices is noted. Like many folks I have used e-mail extensively with great success! Regardless if I contact an office by e-mail or telephone I always whittle my request to the year and the quarter for a birth or death. I never ask for a marriage unless I know the parish - staff don't have time to check entries for (the many) parishes.

I also never telephone until Tuesday afternoon at the earliest - there is a lot of 'traffic' that has to be documented from occurrences over the weekend. Staff seem very grateful for that 'delay' on my part.

However, I have noticed in the last year or so that my e-mails are not answered - they are not rejected, simply not answered! While this is very disappointing - and I often think also rude - I suspect this may be due to the volume of requests many offices receive with the growth of genealogy from TV etc. Add to that the usual downsizing, staff reduction, and amalgamation of offices - Hampshire is the most recent, I understand - there is no time for staff to respond.

Have other GR members found the above scenario not receiving reply to e-mail?

To answer Sheila, above. I noted the following in a couple of threads on GR:

''Over several years I have been in contact with greater than three dozen register offices by telephone. With one exception in London, these ladies have been the absolute best!

I have remarked to many of them:
''You and your colleagues are the best ambassadors the British Government doesn't know it has." ''

Indeed these ladies are the finest in my humble opinion.

Until I read your post, Sheila, I never noted the 'offending' office on my post; it was Islington, in 2006. The lady I phoned told me I was the genealogist and it was not her job to confirm data for me! She refused point blank to budge. Wow! - and Ouch! Thanks so much, love. Good on ya, and you have a nice day, too!
So that was that confirmation well and truly out the window - regardless my pleas from so far away, and with the year and quarter to hand to assist confirmation! Some you win - and some you don't.

Sheila, I really think you will be wiser - and it will be much quicker for you - to order your certificates via the GRO. Many of these larger register offices really don't have the staff and therefore the time to answer requests.

Oh, just to put the icing on the cake, the surname I was checking in 2006 was Jeffrey(s) spelling varies - 1904 or thereabouts. This family was mostly born at Islington, I recall.

Good luck in your research.

Barry

Hi I have been looking for my grandfathers birth certificate for 2 years sent to GRO for broad search, nothing. Thought I would read your thread and maybe ask the local office to do a better search and something made me look at a different channel. My information was 1857 Paddington William Adams I had looked for mothers maiden name etc, however I have found him William Jeffrey 1857 Islington GREAT Looked on Freebmd it shows a male Adams and also a William Jeffrey do I get the certificate from GRO or Islington and has anybody got an address for Islington the one I found on Google was for certificates after 1910. I am living in Spain but I am willing to ring, write or do it online. I am so happy Sheila (Sorry my ggrandfathers middle name is Jeffrey this being his mother maiden name)

:-)

This site gives A-Z of Register Offices and shows those where you can order online.

http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/regoff.html#L

I recently ordered a cert from Lancashire bmd, you can order online for some of the districts, I paid 9 pounds and recieved it within 2 days.

I guess I have been lucky so far, the register offices at Wigan and Leigh, and surrounding area have been extremely helpful because with the difference in bounderies now to the 1800's it is not always easy to tell who to apply to, having said that I have also found the GRO on line service to be good too, they charge £9.25 but you don't need to send a stamped addressed envelope.
happy hunting :-)
M.

nudged for future ref

Brought forward.

Thank you, Meg :-)

WEll done Joy.

I still rate the local Register Office.

Little story to prove their worth. Lady I am helping at the moment has the original cert of her mother's marriage (you never get that from the GRO), with her signature. 1927, so she could write.

Only trouble was, her mother deserted the first husband, and married a further two times. My contact isn't at all sure about the further two marriages. She's got the certs from the GRO, but still isn't happy. Had she got the certs from the local Reg Office, she'd have been able to compare the signatures and see if we are right.

Meg