General Chat

Has anyone else been affected by the GRO change to the search criteria they have on their on-line certificate ordering?

You used to be able to provide a free text field for supplementary information (I'd usually provide occupation / previous addresses / witness at marriage etc... ) which usually allowed me to confirm a person / certificate. For me this was especially useful as a lot of my ancestors are called Thomas / Davies / Edwards which are very common names in Wales). However GRO have now removed this field from their on-line ordering and you can only supply the basics (name / GRO ref / year etc). I asked them about this and they advised the new process was more efficient which is why they had made the change.

Unfotuntately as a result of the change I've ordered three certificates which have since turned out to be incorrect - this is no fault of the GRO as they have matched the certificate to the base information i've given them, its just my request for information could not be supplemented by any additional information to help corroborate my search. The GRO will refund certificates if they have produced an incorrect match (if they made a mistake when comparing the base information you've provided when obtaining the certificate). Where I've ordered incorrect certificates I've added these as postems to the FBMD site.

So this is not a rant - just information that you might want to consider if you are ordering a cert with less than 100% confidence from the GRO on-line service.

That's a pain for surnames like the ones you mention. After all, who wants a cert which is not of their relative?

There is a 'Reference Checking' section where you can specify extra information that may help but it doesn't cover all the data you want to match unfortunately.

Mark.

Yes that is the bit they have changed unfortunately.