General Chat

Does a anyone know of a site where you can pay to view ancestors birth certificate online? Thanks

For the UK you will have to go to either the GRO or local office and get a paper copy GRO charge £ 9.50. The copy remains govt copyright.

Some ancestry members post GRO certs.
There are also cert 4sale / swapping sites.

Most of the time you can work out a tree without certs. However they have info which can be crucial such as witness names and occupation / name of father.

Always make sure any entry in yr tree has two independent ref. NOT counting Op tree.

Hi Rollo I'm just wanting to know a date of birth for a relative and don't think you can do this just from birth record.. Or am I wrong?

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http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/genealogy_chat/thread/1364975

You're not wrong. You do need to buy the certificate. Rollo is correct in saying that sometimes birth certificates are up loaded to 'exchange' sites or onto public trees.

What year are you considering and are they still living?

Sometimes you can find baptisms on line where the date of birth has been recorded.
Death indexes (England & Wales) since the mid 1960's record the dob. However, that is provided by the informant who could have got it wrong.
The 1939 register (England & Wales) also gives dates of birth although some people gave inaccurate information. You won't be able to access names if they were born less than 100 years ago or, with some exceptions, died after 1992/outside of England or Wales.

Generally you would need a certificate or other record already mentioned.

About when was your ancestor born?

If a child was a dependant of a wartime serving soldier, their birth date might be recorded and be shown on World War 1 service records.

Just see you can you get digital copies on amcestry.com. thanks

For goodness sake, don't buy through Ancestry! They charge in excess of £20 where as the original price is £9.25 via GRO. http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

Are you sure you aren't confusing a birth certificate with a baptism? Or possibly the GRO birth index? You can view that for free 1837-c1973 at https://www.freebmd.org.uk or https://familysearch.org

Why don't you tell us what you are looking for & we'll point you in the right direction.

Sometimes a Death Record will have the date of birth on.

My Grandmother died in 1975. I had her d.o.b from GR through the Original Death Record and Transcription (22nd April 1873)

edited .... which was confirmed when I ordered her birth certificate.

birth dates on death certs are often out sometimes by a few days sometimes by months and years. This is because the person reporting the death will often be relying on the deceased not always the most reliable source of birth date or place.

Such dates since 1945 approx are more reliable than those earlier.

ancestry also holds probate records and these can be v informative.

Probate entries can be found for free on https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/#wills

You do have to do the hard work yourself rather than benefit from Ancestry's search engine. Its worth mentioning that not every Estate went to Probate, and if it did it may have occured several years after the death.

However, Trina was asking about dates of birth; the Probate Calendar is useful for the date of death.

If they were around in1939 the the register will show their birth date as they recorded it

I have seen deaths records were the birth date doesn't quite tie to the record on the 1939 . Who knows which one is wrong . More likely the death recird as that is as the informant thought they knew !

I certainly wouldn't want my family birth certs available for all to see!!

Some truths have got hidden over the years that come to light with certs

Our ancestors wouldn't like to think all and sundry would be privy to what info was around then

All and sundry can indeed see yr birth certs simply by shelling out for a copy. Some countried have restrictions not the UK.

True the public GRO register is only online to 2006 but needing a visit to Kew etc will hardly deter heir hunters, journos and determined F.h.

Well yes they can but they have to buy the certs not view the info online for free


I have found some family secrets but have to look for the families and to buy certs to tie up the info

Some folks didn't like their " dirty laundry" exposed They tried to conceal but had to do official recording

For instance my paternal gran had one sister who had an illigitmate daughter in1911
When that daughter married in then1930's she didn't want to admit to be illigitimate so she named her grandfather who was desceased as her dad

No way was he her dad but the mum didn't give on who he was

Scotland allow downloads by bought credits for births over 100 year old.those outside the time limit can be ordered online @ £12 for each certificate.

scotlandspeople.gov.uk



needs your registration.

thanks all it was was i just wanted an online copy really thanks all.