* GRO certificates

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gwilym'smum
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GRO certificates

Post by gwilym'smum »

Hi,
I haven't checked this myself as yet but reported on a couple of reputable forums, including Midland Ancestors, that the GRO are doing their pdf downloads of certificates for £6 for a period of 6months again. Only birth and death I believe. I'm off to make my list!
Researching Mayer, Parr/Parr, Simcock, Beech and all related families
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brianlummis
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by brianlummis »

To quote from the GRO website https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/cert ... /Login.asp


"General Register Office (GRO) - PDF Extended Pilot

The GRO is piloting a service from 12 October 2017 to provide portable document format (PDF) copies of digitised historical birth and death records. The pilot will run for a minimum of 3 months to enable GRO to assess the demand for this service over a prolonged period.

Applications for each PDF cost £6, must be made online, and include a GRO index reference.

England and Wales records which are available as PDFs in this extended pilot include:

Births: 1837 –1916
Deaths: 1837 –1957

Note: A PDF is not a certificate and has no “evidential” value, and therefore a certificate is required for official purposes, e.g. applying for a passport, driving licence or giving notice of marriage."
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Valkrider
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by Valkrider »

If they want to get a true guide of how useful this service will be they need to add marriages too.
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Peter Collier
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by Peter Collier »

Frustratingly, after holding off for a long time, I had finally just ordered 8 birth certificates quite literally the very day before! Just 24 hours more and I could have saved myself £26. :cry:

These PDFs can't be used for anything one might normally need an actual certificate for; one is literally just paying to see the information. That suggests to me that, by and large, the only people availing themselves of the opportunity to buy these PDFs are going to be those undertaking genealogical research. Such people quite likely have no shorthage of records they would like to see, given the opportunity. Their main constraint is going to be cost. For that reason, I am at a loss as to why the charge for what is in effect just a reprint of a photocopy of the register is so very high (£6). The charges made by the Irish GRO for the same service, for example, are much more reasonable.

There is next to no work being demanded of the GRO here. The GRO has already digitised the records. The applicants are responsible for finding and providing the relevant Index numbers, and names and dates for cross-checking, themselves. All the GRO has to do is copy the data entered electronically in the online form, lookup and cross-check with the information in their database, and print the associated image to file. I would be frankly amazed if the process is not almost completely automated. The only time human intervention is going to be needed is if the inputted data do not match. Now, I can't speak for everyone researching their own family's history, but I certainly know that in my case, if I am fortunate enough from time to time to have some money that I can spend at the records office, then the limit is what I can afford to spend, not how many records I want to look at. They are going to get all the money I have budgeted, whether that buys me 8 certificates or 12.

While I will take a PDF copy in preference to the more expensive certificate every time – I don't want or need to pay for fancy, watermarked paper, and the digital format saves me having to scan the document myself – I still really think these files are massively overpriced. Something closer to £2 or £3 each would be much more reasonsable and, I suspect, would still return a healthy profit to the government.
Last edited by Peter Collier on 16 Oct 2017 08:39, edited 1 time in total.
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AdrianBruce
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by AdrianBruce »

Peter Collier wrote:... The charges made by the Irish GRO for the same service, for example, are much more reasonable. ...
Well, yes, free is definitely more reasonable (provided you hit the right time period).
Adrian
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Peter Collier
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by Peter Collier »

Free!? I must be doing something wrong. They charged me about €4 a pop, if I recall correctly.
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AdrianBruce
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by AdrianBruce »

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/ has free images providing, and it's a big providing, you hit the right time period.

Fairly recent...
Adrian
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Peter Collier
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by Peter Collier »

Thanks for the link, Adrian. Generally speaking, what would be the right time period?
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AdrianBruce
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by AdrianBruce »

Full details on https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/civil- ... re-on-line

If you ever try to find the details again, be aware that the images are referred to as "Records" and the Indexes are referred to as, well, indexes. I find it all too easy to look at the word "Index" and not actually read it! :)
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tatewise
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by tatewise »

I think what we are finding difficult to discover is the time period when they are FREE.
All I can find is the form that charges €4 by following the here link from
https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/civil- ... at-do-i-do
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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AdrianBruce
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by AdrianBruce »

Are we at cross purposes here?

The images of the free certificates are on the site. The form is for use if you want a paper copy.

Quoting from my link https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/civil- ... re-on-line....
Register images of the Civil Records of Irish Births, Deaths and Marriages
The years covered by the release of the historic records of Births, Marriages and Deaths are:
Births: 1864 to 1915
Marriages: 1882** to 1940
Deaths: 1891** to 1965
**The General Register Office are currently working on updating further records of Marriages dating back to 1845 and Deaths dating back to 1864.These will be included in future updates to the records available on the website.
Enquiries are accessed via the link https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/ ... search.jsp under the heading "Civil Records". Images of certificates in the years mentioned in that quote are free on the site. Make the enquiry, choose the entry that you think might be the one and click the rather small word "Image" - if it's in the time period of years quoted above. You'll get a free PDF of the full page. If the events are outside that range of years, then yes, the "Image" link doesn't appear and it's back to the paper copy.
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tatewise
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by tatewise »

Sorry for being slow on the uptake, but those extra clues led me in the correct direction, and I found a useful free image.

I have updated the entry in research:useful_research_web_sites|> Useful Research Web Sites for Ireland with the advice from here.
See fhugdownloads:contents:service_irish_genealogy|> Service ~ Irish Genealogy.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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AnneEast
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by AnneEast »

Going back to the original posting ........
It is becoming clear that the GRO emails we are supposed to get with a notification that the certificates are ready to download are not coming through. A number of people have found that their images are ready for downloading on their GRO account and have been for several days!
If you have ordered PDF certificates check your account!
Anne
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tatewise
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by tatewise »

Also check that the Emails have not gone to a Spam or similar folder, or auto-deleted, and if necessary add the GRO Email address to your whitelist.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by davidm_uk »

I've just found and downloaded a PDF cert that I ordered a few days ago, and had received no email from GRO (and it wasn't in spam either, or deleted by filters).

Edit
I did get an email from "col.admin@gro.gsi.gov.uk" saying " Your order has been successfully sent to GRO for processing. Please find below the order reference details. Please make a note of these reference numbers as you will need to quote them if you have any enquiries regarding the application."

I can't find anywhere on their website that says that they will send another email when the order is ready for download?

Edit
About 15 minutes after posting this message I received an email from GRO saying that the cert was in my "orders box" ready for downloading! :o
David Miller - researching Miller, Hare, Walker, Bright (mostly Herts, Beds, Dorset and London)
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arthurk
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by arthurk »

davidm_uk wrote:I can't find anywhere on their website that says that they will send another email when the order is ready for download?
It's on this page at Q20: https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/cert ... o_know.asp
(When I went to get the link just now, the page was very slow to load, but opened normally once I'd logged in.)

However, my list of orders shows that some pdfs were uploaded yesterday morning and the emails weren't sent till about 24 hours later.
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gwilym'smum
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by gwilym'smum »

Hi, When the offer was available previously I'm nearly sure (I could be wrong!) that you just clicked on the link and you received the download straight away. I have had the notification today, the day of stated despatch. Eventually navigated to the page and entered the code. My three orders appeared but as others have said they had been there since 16th. I downloaded the first one. Tried the second but a message that I wasn't authorized to download. After another 3 tries it worked. I tried the third but no way would it load and I kept getting the message so I logged out and re entered the code, it worked this time. This is not half as good as the previous offer. Bit disappointed.
Ann
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AnneEast
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Re: GRO certificates

Post by AnneEast »

Got my certificates yesterday with no problems, by downloading them from the website. Got my emails today!! LOL
Anne
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