GRO survey 2015

GROan....

 

I didn't know anything about an annual GRO survey so thanks Peter for posting this. I have completed it but didn't interpret the faster email service as being more expensive than the standard one. It gave me the impression that email was going to be free. Naive me??!! or is the survey ambiguous?

 

At the moment services at the GRO are cheaper than Australian alternatives... but then Australian versions are all emailed.

 

I have read the survey very carefully and my answers wouldn't have been any different from those submitted earlier. Question 17 asks how interested would you be in using a service that provided the information via an email from the GRO, rather than a certificate. I am interested. I have answered the question as put, as this is a survey of what I want I don't expect cost to be mentioned because it would be something that should be addressed once the results of the survey are analysed, surely it should depend on demand?
Before I decide how much I am willing to pay I would need to see costings.

Question 19 is the one about a faster service, I don't need the information that quickly so I am not interested.

Maybe the Australian certificates are more expensive but an Australian death certificate has so much more information in it. Both my parents died in Australia so I have their death certs.
A petition to the UK GRO for more information to be included in the certs would be a good idea from my point of view.

 

Australia death certs, and birth certs are the best - the Birth certificates include a lot of the same information as the death certificates. It's just a shame that the English certificates don't include that sort of information. I am Australian, but I have been collecting all those birth, death and marriage certificates from the UK of those family members who were born/died from 1837 onwards.

 

You must have spent a lot of money over the years,although if purchased in years gone by I think considerably cheaper than present day prices.

 

Oh I'm not that old (probably significantly younger than most family historians) - and I've only really been searching for the past 2 years.

That and the majority of my father's family emigrated in the 1840s, and a good percentage of those who didn't were Scottish, so it makes little easier (and cheaper) when you're only looking for certs for half the family.

 

Just because I live in NZ it doesn’t mean I am not English. I was born in England, so were my parents . We do not have any Scottish relatives/ancestors therefore I have had no reason to look at Scottish records so I don’t know what they look like. It would make no difference if I did live in England.

My father’s original birth certificate issued in 1911 only has his name, the registry number and the district the birth was registered in. We have come a long way since then but I feel we could go even further by spreading the net a bit wider and looking at other countries to see what information is given in their BMD certs.

My father’s death certificate issued in Queensland, Australia has his parents names, his wife’s name and address, where he was born and how long he has lived in Australia, how long he was married and the city the marriage took place (London), a list of living issue (that includes me) and their ages at the time..

Wouldn’t you just love to be able to find that much out about somebody from their death certificate?

 

Wow! Sure would

 

The birth certificates are similar - often including both parents names (and mother's maiden name) plus their marriage date, any living children and occupation. Although you can't always trust the information, one of my g-grandfather and his second wife weren't married for the birth of each of their 7 children, and they kept changing the date of their supposed marriage on the certificates. (I checked a couple to find out what they had been saying when I found out when they had actually been married).

The older Australian certificates have a lot less information, they changed it at some point, but I don't know when.

One thing the British GRO can learn from the Australians is a system that is what they seem to be aiming for - each of the Australian states has an online search (only Victoria charges to search their BDMs) and then for varying prices ($20-$30), you can purchase an "image" of the document which can be emailed to you (South Australia only offers transcriptions). Of the states I have ordered certificates from - QLD, Victoria and SA offer immediate access to the document you want - basically as soon as you pay, while NSW will email it to you later - I've had documents turn up two days later, up to 2 weeks later, all emailed through as PDFs. QLD and Victoria offer jpg images and SA will give you a full written out transcription.

I love the ScotlandsPeople example, since I have a significant portion of Scottish ancestry (almost half of my paternal side) but my entire maternal side is English/Welsh, so I while I would love to have a "BritishPeople" version, I would be happy enough to settle for a version more like one of the Australian states, even NSW, although I'd prefer QLD's way of doing things, with the GRO's payment plan, which is cheaper than any of the Australian states (i.e. no payment for searching their database - and you can search by year, surname, parents names etc; and immediate access to the document in question and only approximately $18 per certificate - Australian states can charge up to $10 more for a "Certificate" rather than an "image")

 

Victoria has recently stopped charging for searching, they raised the price, I believe in July, to $24 from $20 probably in anticipation of this. https://online.justice.vic.gov.au/bdm/indexsearch.doj

While I agree that the GRO could perhaps learn something from the Australian systems, it has to be remembered that Australian Certificates are the same price or more expensive that the GRO current prices. The last thing we want is them thinking they can charge the same for uncertified copies of the entries and then putting the price up further for non-historical certificates (namely those less than a 100 years old). The fact that most Australian and New Zealand certificates contain far more information than those for England & Wales is unlikely to stop them if they decide to go down that route.

 

I feel an urge to comment on some of these postings.

I wonder what the document that At home in NZ describes as his father's birth certificate, issued in England, is. A full certificate (a certified copy of the entry of birth) would contain all the details of the entry in the register of births. A short birth certificate (a certificate of birth) would show the date of birth, the sex of the child and the sub-district, as well as the details mentioned by At home. A certificate of registry of birth would give similar information, except the child's sex. He seems to be describing an entry in the index to the registers of births.

While it would be advantageous to us if entries in death registers (and in marriage registers, for that matter) included more information, this would add to the misinformation recorded, as jorghes has mentioned. I have long regarded details shown in marriage registers, other than those relating to the ceremony itself, as works of historical fiction: they may or may not be correct. My sister registered my father's death, and gave as his place of birth that where he was legally deemed to have been born. It was some years later that I ascertained where his birth actually took place. Some stronger advice to clergy about registering marriages might be helpful, though. I have seen an entry in a current marriage register giving the rank or profession of both parties as "self-employed" with no further explanation. I am fairly sure that neither is engaged in a disreputable occupation.

It is true that there is no charge for searching the G.R.O. database, but one reason for this is that it is no longer available for searching. This is why Ancestry was able to get data from it only up to 2005 and Find My Past to 2006. There was a period when public access to it was made available at Myddelton Place, but I am fairly sure that this would have ceased even if the search room had been maintained there. The G.R.O. complies with its duty to make all its indexes available for searching, even doing so in several places rather than one, but now resists making it easy, even for those willing to travel or living in Bridgend.

 

That reminds speaking with my Granddaughter a Librarian but also a B&D Registrar in Kent she said that often people registering the death of loved ones are not always sure of personal details of the deceased -leaving aside cause of death obtained from the actual death certificate. She recounted how often she feels people just guess or assume things and she has to record what they tell her.

 

I know that when my brother-in-law registered his mother's death he confessed he wasn't sure of the year she was born. The response was that it didn't matter. I now bear that in mind regarding accuracy of death certificates!