* GRO Indexes

[TimTreeby]

The GRO have updated their indexes so if you search online from the GRO Website you can now get Mother's Maiden Name for births before 1911 and Age at death for the deaths before 1865 https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/cert ... search.asp .This should help in making sure you buy the right certificate. See https://memoriesintime.co.nz/blogs/news ... th-indexes for a brief tutorial that someone has done. Which explains how the new search works.

Be aware the search is fairly restrictive in what can be searched. (i.e. Have to have a minimum of Surname/Sex/(Year +/- 2). But does work very well within those limitations.

[rodit]

Tim
Great news! Just tracked down 3 children I knew had died because of the 1911 Census.
I am already registered with the GRO so it was straightforward.

Roger

[Gowermick]

Thanks Tim,
Look forward to trying it out.

[Peter Collier]

Marvellous news. Hopefully, that should see the end of expensive red herrings.

I had to buy some information from the Irish GRO quite recently, and was very pleased to find I could just order a photocopy of the register entry for €4, rather than paying full whack for an official birth certificate. The New Zealand government provides a similar option for records beyond a certain age.

It would be nice if the E&W GRO could be persuaded to do a similar thing. There is a whole raft of register entries I'm interested to see, as there is a possibility they may be related to ancestors I am researching, but I am not willing to pay £9.25 a pop on the off-chance that they are the person I am looking for. If I could buy an uncertified research copy for about £3 to £4 I would be more willing to take a punt. The E&W GRO may find that in providing a cheaper option they don't actually lose any money since, while the demand for official birth certificates of people born 180 years ago will doubtless disappear –- these people are long past applying for a passport(!) -- they will probably find the people buying historical data will just as happily still spend £9 to buy uncertified copies of two or three entries instead of one.

[Jane]

As with all indexes watch out for errors!

I just found another child for my Husbands 2xG Grandfather

Birth
TAUBMAN, JOSEPH STEPHEN KELLY Order
GRO Reference: 1895 J Quarter in WEST DERBY Volume 08B Page 387

Death
TAUBMAN, JOSEPH STEPHEN 14 Order
GRO Reference: 1896 J Quarter in WEST DERBY Volume 08B Page 260

Free BMD
Deaths Jun 1896 (>99%)
Taubman Joseph Stephen 1 W. Derby 8b 260

As you can see the child got to 14 years in just over 1 year, my guess he was 14months when he died.

[johnmorrisoniom]

Looks like your husband may have Manx connections Jane

[Gowermick]

Jane,
But did you report the error to freebmd?

All sites have errors in one form or another, and they will only get better if we all take the effort to report them when we find them.

[tatewise]

I have added that new capability to research:useful_research_web_sites|> Useful Research Web Sites under England & Wales for Civil Registration with a link to fhugdownloads:contents:service_uk_gro_online_index_search|> Service ~ UK GRO Online Index Search that also links to the brief tutorial.

[TimTreeby]

Regarding errors, I certainly think is a re-index as have found people with a slightly different spelling on new GRO Index compared to the old one. Makes it slightly harder to find some people in that case. Although can see why the Indexes show what they do as have copy of Certificate and could be read either way.

They have an option to report Errors in Index. When I filled the form in and sent off to say that the Indexes were different. They gave me a message which said some thing along the lines of

Thanks for reporting, you will not be notified if changes are made or not but if they are will come in the next index refresh. This is due to this being a Beta Pilot.

This I suspect means that there will be changes made at some stage and possibly why was a fairly soft launch, rather than a big media launc.

[Jane]

Jane,
But did you report the error to freebmd?

The age is correct on FreeBMD as 1 year on the GRO site it's 14years rather than 14 months. I have logged it with them.

[Jane]

Looks like your husband may have Manx connections Jane

Yes he does, as I am sure you know most of the Taubman clan come from the IOM. Steve's Great x2 Grandfather came across to Liverpool in the 1860's. One day I am going to get across and do some in place research.

[Jane]

Taken from the "Lost Cousins" newsletter

Digital copies of certificates to be trialled
From 9th November the GRO will be trialling a new service under which uncertified PDF . . . .

See
http://lostcousins.com/newsletters2/spe ... ndexlaunch

for more information.

[johnmorrisoniom]

One day I am going to get across and do some in place research

Please do Jane, you would be most welcome. Maybe you could do a Family historian course in conjunction with Manx National Heritage.

Also as a keen photographer you would be most welcome in my Photography shop.

[AdrianBruce]

Peter Calver's Lost Cousins newsletter mentions that "Also, if an infant died at the age of (say) 9 days, 9 weeks, or 9 months the age at death may have been recorded as 9 years."

[David Potter]

Hi All

Is there an online resource for GRO Indexes say as recent as 2016? I'm interested in finding a Death Index for 2016 if it exists.

[David Potter]

UK resources I should have said.

[mjashby]

The GRO hasn't released BMD records to the major online providers for years later than 2005. Ancestry claims to have some later records from 2007 in a specific collection, but they were 'privately collected' and it's unclear where they come from. Possibly sourced from Probate and Newspaper entries given that there are no GRO Index details. they are not comprehensive; and they mostly provide dates of death, with some birth dates but little else.

Mervyn

Additional Info.: The Source Mentioned above is listed on Ancestry as "England and Wales, Death Index, 2007-2015" and is available at http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=60630 for anyone with a subscription or access to the site (e.g. some Libraries and Records Offices). Original data: GreyPower Deceased Data. compiled by Wilmington Millennium, West Yorkshire.

I believe the original provider is a professional Data Management Company, so the data was possibly brought together for demonstration purposes.

[Jane]

If you think there might have been a Probated will (or Grant of Admin) you can search on
https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk

which will give you a death date.

[David Potter]

Thank you Jane and Mervyn - that's was most helpful. I'll take a look at those sites.

BR

David

[NickiP]

Additional Info.: The Source Mentioned above is listed on Ancestry as "England and Wales, Death Index, 2007-2015" and is available at http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=60630 for anyone with a subscription or access to the site (e.g. some Libraries and Records Offices). Original data: GreyPower Deceased Data. compiled by Wilmington Millennium, West Yorkshire.

I believe the original provider is a professional Data Management Company, so the data was possibly brought together for demonstration purposes.

Some of the data is also from Funeral Directors. My grandmother's death is included but I know for certain that no newspaper announcement was published for it. Initially I also wondered if it related to Probate entries but Ancestry denied this when it was first launched. Originally, the collection had no reference to the source of the data was Wilmington Millennium as a number of people wondered whether Ancestry had been trawling the new online official Probate indexes collecting the information.