Genealogy Chat

Hello, when I search for a birth the mother's maiden name is not coming up, even when I know the maiden name. I am not doing anything different that I would normally do, is there something wrong with the site. FreeBMD is working ok - thanks

It's working ok now.

You're right Marian. I've just tried a birth from the 1930's and one from 1990's and neither show the mother's maiden name - although they used to.

I tried a birth from the late 1800's and that one did show mother's maiden name.

Strange :-S

Kath. x

The gro don’t have births from 1934 to 1984

Think from 1984 as the births are under 50 years old it’s data protection which is why mmn isn’t shown

I don't think it can be a data protection issue Shirley as the mother's maiden name is shown on Findmypast for births less than 50 years old. My grandson's birth is showing with his mother's maiden name and he is only 22 years old.

I'm sure I've looked up his birth on the GRO site before and the mmn was there but it isn't showing now!

Kath. x

Well yes it’s certainly not on the gro site now


Wonder why then ? :-(

Births up to 1921 are showing mmn, but now they're not in 1922 and later .

Don't know why.
Perhaps one of us should ask them!

A hundred-year rule?


EDIT: I've now emailed GRO.

If you pursue any recent birth on the GRO site as far as trying to order a cert, you will see that full parental details have to be inserted.

I've done just that with my late husband's great grandchildren's births in 2003 and 2006

A while back my granddaughter wanted a copy of her birth certificate

She was born in 1982 and I had to put both parents names on the order


If you didn’t have the info they wouldn’t accept the order


She was actually born In Germany where her dad was stationed in the British army

Her birth was reg at the British consulate and mmn is listed but the order wanted mums full name

Still needed all the info as well as the gro ref

Reply received from GRO at last .

I'd asked why mmn was not showing for births in certain years, when it used to be shown.

However, they've just given general info which doesn't answer the question:



"Thank you for your enquiry.
For information regarding the capture of mothers maiden name in the GRO online indexes please see our Frequently Asked Questions Section 8 GRO: https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/faq.asp

Q11. Why is Mother's Maiden Name shown in most, but not all birth indexes?

In some cases, Mother's Maiden Name was not data captured, and will appear in the online index as a dash.
For historic indexes, we have where possible enhanced the indexes to include Mother's Maiden Name where it has previously not been provided on the microfiche indexes.
For modern birth indexes, the mother’s maiden name will only be included in the returned index if it was already entered as part of the online search."


That final sentence is interesting - is that what's confusing us?

Thanks Argyll.

Thanks ArgyllGran.

I've just tried my grandson's birth putting his mmn in the search boxes and it does indeed come up in the result but not if I don't put it in the search.

I'm still sure it used to come up anyway but maybe they have changed things.

Kath. x

Is there a reason why there is a big gap in the years available to search births, although more recent births are available to search?

I don't actually need anything, but wondered why I can see my grandson's record, but not those of my own children.

Don't know why the big gap.

When the records can be found on FreeBMD and elsewhere, it seems strange that they can't be searched on GRO itself.

However, they're working on it:

"The GRO online indexes
A number of GRO birth and death indexes are freely available to search online. These cover birth records from 1837 up to 100 years ago, and 1984 up to the current year; and death records from 1837 to 1957, and 1984 up to the current year. . . . . . .
GRO is currently working on a rolling programme to put all of its indexes online. We will notify you via our website when new indexes are added. "
https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/faq.asp

A reply from someone's query about that in 2018:

"When we developed online indexes on our own website we needed to take
these from the records we had already digitised. Since these are births
and deaths starting in 1837 – but not going beyond 1934 in the case of
births, and 1957 in the case of deaths, which were the limits reached in
our digitisation work to date – we decided that we would start by
publishing “historic” records for these using the same demarcation as that
already use in Scotland and Northern Ireland, ie births over 100 years old
and deaths over 50 years old.

However, we do continue to publish all years, and as you note make these
available in microfiche format. We do recognise that there is interest
amongst our customers in being able to see indexes of modern records – and
of course marriages indexes from 1837 - online. We are continuing to see
what opportunities we may have to complete our digitisation, which would
then enable us to reach decisions on the potential expansion of our online
indexes to cover additional years. "
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/gro_indexes



See also the post by Guy Etchells on this thread:
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=822188.0

Apparently the earlier records were gradually digitised by a process abandoned before they were all done.
The more recent records were already computerised, and therefore didn't need to be digitised.
Lack of funding is said to be the reason for not having completed the pre-computer records yet.