RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Girl Guide on Friday 11 November 16 07:32 GMT (UK)
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Thanks to the new GRO online index service I have now found the 11th child of my great grandparents.
The 1911 census had revealed nine living, two died. I knew who one of the dead was but not the other. I had no name or sex for this child as it had never appeared in any census record.
The new GRO service enabled me to narrow the choices down to three. I had the White/Smith combination. One was born before my grandpa who was born in 1895 and the other two were after his birth.
I decided to plump for the one before grandpa and whoopee.............it was the right one, born in 1875 and died six months later in 1876.
Great grandma started in 1873 and finished producing children in 1895 so I would imagine she had had enough by then!
I'm still beaming like mad ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Congratulations.
In spite of my criticism of the GRO on another part of these forums, that does not in any way take away from the good work and effort they have put in by preparing and delivering these new indexes.
Cheers
Guy
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Yes thanks to the GRO we have now broken through the 10 year old brick wall. Had gt grandfathers baptism, marriage,death cert etc Could track him from 1846-1926 but could never find a birth ref- course not he was registered as Thomas, baptised as Joseph :)
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Hello
I am sorry - I have been out of the Loop as you may say, for a couple of months or more.... (dreadful job of moving house and then feeling aaaghhhed (he he) by it all)
So can someone fill me in on the new GRO service...
I too have one baby left to find that was shown on the 1911 ...
There were 3 that had died and I found two... but one little one still lost to me.
so I would love to find this one too.
xin
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I know the feeling - have just spent an enjoyable couple of hours filling in the gaps of 2 families. Likewise I had the number of children born from the 1911 census, but couldn't find them all - with the new indexes I have (almost) found what looks to be the missing siblings. ;D
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Hello
I am sorry - I have been out of the Loop as you may say, for a couple of months or more.... (dreadful job of moving house and then feeling aaaghhhed (he he) by it all)
So can someone fill me in on the new GRO service...
I too have one baby left to find that was shown on the 1911 ...
There were 3 that had died and I found two... but one little one still lost to me.
so I would love to find this one too.
xin
A couple of threads about it here
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=759016.0
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=758727.0
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Thank you
:) :) :)
xin
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You're welcome xin, have fun and happy hunting!
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Hello
I am sorry - I have been out of the Loop as you may say, for a couple of months or more.... (dreadful job of moving house and then feeling aaaghhhed (he he) by it all)
Hope your move went well and you are settled in now in your new home xin nice to see you back :)
Rosie
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Thanks :)
I am under a pile of boxes and think I will be for the foreseeable future....... :-X :-X :-X :-X ::)
xin
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Congratulations on filling the gap in your tree.
I've added a few "lost little ones" to my tree - I've started working through the families who I know had more children (from the 1911 census), then I'll start on the earlier families.
Luckily most of my ancestors have nice rare surnames - I don't envy you searching for White/Smith!
It feels a little sad to be adding all these young deaths to my tree, but I guess it's nice to acknowledge them and know their name. I wonder if my great-grandfather knew he had another sibling? Or that his wife shared her name (Kate) with his dead sister?
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Oh wow........ thank you all so much -
Some of you may know that I have been searching for one little lost one for some many years.. and today cos of this Gro thingy and this post........
I found HER .... fillin up.... her name was Emma bn 1868 her mothers maiden name had been transcribed slightly wrong.. but now I have all My G.Grans missing babies.. the 1911 showed 3 missing and so I tell her now that I have at last found them all. I know she will be chuffed :) xxxx
eee off to the quiet corner to ponder for a while .... beautiful baby Emma xxxxxx
xin
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I know what you mean Xin.
My husband's G Grandparents had 16 children but I could only find 15 and I felt so sad not being able to acknowledge the existence of that final 'lost' child. Found her on the new GRO index - Jane, born & died 1900.
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It is fantastic ;)
xin
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Couldn't agree more, so nice to at last be able to acknowledge the "lost" ones. :)
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Isn't it just? Filling in the gaps and adding flesh to the bones.
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Oh wow!!!
I had a family tradition that my great great grandfather was the youngest of of 10 children, but all the others died in infancy. I had a list of 14 candidates for the other 9, but no way of identifying the correct ones without spending a FORTUNE on certificates.
I now have the identifications. He was actually the 6th of 9 ... and all the others did die in infancy. That's not bad going, as accuracy of family traditions is usually pretty poor on details like numbers and sequences of children.
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Yep, I'm finding loads of "forgotten" children now. It used to blow me away that my 4x great grandparents had fourteen kids, now I've found out that they had fifteen!
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I have spent years trying to fill in the gaps with my great grandparents' 15 children - only 4 survived.
It doesn't help that they were travelling between different West Yorkshire and East Yorkshire fairgrounds so no constant location. Plus the mother alternates giving her maiden name as France (her actual father's surname) and Walker (her stepfather's surname), so it hasn't been an easy task, especially as she plumped for Walker more than she did France. Why couldn't she have gone for the less common name? ::)
Thanks to the new GRO indices, I have found another son, so now only have two more children to locate. I'm trying again, making a list and being methodical, looking for the time gaps.
Can't complain though, as I have found two long lost deaths and a couple of children (another branch) who were born and died between censuses.
Someone earlier in this thread said they were having great fun searching - so am I! However, if I said that to the sister in law who's just been on the phone, she'd think I was ready for the funny farm. "Other people" just don't get it, do they??!! ;)
Jill
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I decided to get the death certificate for the missing child that I found. I requested a pdf file as it was cheaper.
Received it via email today and I was somewhat surprised to find that it is not a complete cert. The top bit is the usual you get at the top of a cert, reg. district etc.
Then under that is the details of the death, name etc but you can see that it has been sort of cut and pasted as the lines don't match up. And that's it, nothing else underneath.
Has anyone else found this with their pdf cert?
It would be interesting to see what other rootschatters receive when requesting a pdf birth or marriage cert.
I did try downloading it to here but the file was too big and I don't know what to do to make it fit!
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Guy has posted an image on his website of birth and death copies supplied as PDF (scroll to the last copy)
http://anguline.co.uk/cert/burial.html
http://anguline.co.uk/cert/birth.html
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I decided to get the death certificate for the missing child that I found. I requested a pdf file as it was cheaper.
Received it via email today and I was somewhat surprised to find that it is not a complete cert. The top bit is the usual you get at the top of a cert, reg. district etc.
Then under that is the details of the death, name etc but you can see that it has been sort of cut and pasted as the lines don't match up. And that's it, nothing else underneath.
Has anyone else found this with their pdf cert?
It would be interesting to see what other rootschatters receive when requesting a pdf birth or marriage cert.
I did try downloading it to here but the file was too big and I don't know what to do to make it fit!
Yes I mentioned this in another thread on Rootschat.
I have images of both an uncertified birth entry and an uncertified death entry on line at
http://anguline.co.uk/cert/uncertified.html
Note the new url to aviod having to scroll through other images first.
Click on either image to make it larger and easier to see that they are infact compiled images made up of two parts.
Cheers
Guy
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But isn't this just, in effect, what we had before with the paper versions?
The only difference being that the new upper portion was pre-printed on to the paper, then the lower section overprinted.
I'm going from memory (and Google) here, as I am away from my certs.
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But isn't this just, in effect, what we had before with the paper versions?
The only difference being that the new upper portion was pre-printed on to the paper, then the lower section overprinted.
I'm going from memory (and Google) here, as I am away from my certs.
No the uncertified PDF image is the same as the centre part of a paper ceritificate (i.e. the part that used to be surrounded by a red line forming a box).
The top section (above the box) on the paper image is not reproduced and the bottom section is not reproduced.
The reason these two sections are not copied to the uncertified PDF images is that they both confirm it being a certified copy which of course the PDF is not.
Cheers
Guy
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Sorry, I didn't make myself clearer.
What I meant was, the old paper versions were not one contiguous item either, just presented differently.
The old paper centre section directly equates to the lower half of the new e-cert
The old paper upper section was just a pre-printed table, showing just headers for Reg Dist, Sub Dist, County, followed by the header bar for the centre section. On to which the detail for Reg Dist, Sub Dist and County were overprinted (in modern type). With the new e-cert, from what I have seen so far, you basically get a copy of this info from the top of the original register.
The only part that is actually different is that you don't get is the lower section, which as Guy says, is what makes it not a "certified certificate" (if you know what I mean!!) and is what means we can get them £3.25 cheaper.
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Do I take it that if you order a pdf marriage cert you will still see the signatures of the bride and groom plus witnesses?
Technically that would be the bottom half of the cert and I'm getting the impression that the pdf doesn't come with the bottom half.
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Unless I've missed something, only Births and Deaths available as PDFs currently.
Guys links from a couple of posts ago show what you get :)
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Oh yes of course, silly me, I'd forgotten it was births and deaths only. Presumably marriages will follow in due course.
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Unless I've missed something, only Births and Deaths available as PDFs currently.
Guys links from a couple of posts ago show what you get :)
I wonder, does it?
If you read what the GRO tell us about Pilot phase 1-
“Pilot phase 1 (approx. three week duration)
PDF copies of those civil registration records that are held by GRO in a digital format (i.e. birth entries recorded 1837 - 1934 and death entries recorded 1837 - 1957, in addition to those much more recent events captured electronically at point of registration, which include birth and death records registered 2007 onwards, civil partnership records registered December 2005 onwards, and marriages registered 2011 onwards). These PDFs will cost £6.”
It does mention civil partnership records registered December 2005 onwards, and marriages registered 2011 onwards.
Now I assume to get those records we would have to visit one of the 7 sites that hold the indexes, though I am not sure how up to date these are.
Search the index for the reference number of the entry and order using that reference number.
The 7 sites are-
Birmingham Central Library
Bridgend Reference and Information Library
City of Westminster Archives Centre
Manchester City Library
Newcastle City Library
Plymouth Central Library
The British Library
Having said that the GRO were saying that the only uncertified copies would be from the Historic registers so it seems one hand does not know what the other hand is doing.
Cheers
Guy
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Do I take it that if you order a pdf marriage cert you will still see the signatures of the bride and groom plus witnesses?
Technically that would be the bottom half of the cert and I'm getting the impression that the pdf doesn't come with the bottom half.
This is applicable to births deaths & marriages: The certs ordered from the GRO are from the Master books as such they are written transcriptions of the Local Register Book. To see any ancestors signatures for real need to order a cert from the Local original registration book and District
Just found SlowGin has written the similar here Reply 149 http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=759016.144
One aspect to consider is whether the local Register Office supplies copies of the original, rather than a transcription. Where they do, it can be valuable to have the actual signatures of the people (assuming they signed rather than made a mark). Also less risk of transcription errors. What you get from the GRO is a transcription made soon after the event, as they don't have access to the original registers. For this reason I've obtained most of my certs from local offices rather than the GRO.
I have ancestors from Northern Ireland and the images supplied from GRONI are the Local ones so show real signatures of bride, groom & witnesses on Marriages, but also on Births and Deaths, though many I (payed to) view were signed X mark.
In Sept the Dublin GRO released images of their GRO books for free including Northern Ireland up to partition 1922. These are all from the Master GRO book so same as we get on English paper copy or uncertified pdf. They supply the entire page as a pdf not just the entry line. Note the signed verification proceedure at the bottom of every page and the signed corrections which may occur when the transcription checks are done.
Marriages from the Dublin GRO are again transcribed copies but the copy is made by the Church Minister 4 to a page, not made by the GRO Register. If want to see the signatures for real also have the option of the Parish images if online, which are identical to the GRO's. In fact just yesterday when looking at Oxfordshire Parish entries I saw the actual book had been supplied to the church by the GRO, they must have distributed a lot of books in 1837.
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Just to add to that. There is an alternative source for marriage entries (if it was a church marriage), and that is the parish register which will usually now be at the county archives. Two copies of the entry will have been written out and signed at the ceremony, one for the registrar and one for the church.
So you can have a copy of the original, with signatures, for the price of a photocopy if you can get to the appropriate archive. Some archives will send you a copy for a small charge if you can provide enough detail for the marriage to be found quickly (date, church).
And of course some parish register images are on sites like Ancestry.
I remember being really puzzled by the first marriage cert I ordered from the GRO. It looked like an original document of the time as regards the style of writing, but all the signatures were in the same writing! It was a while before I learned that they were hand-written copies.
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On the earlier image the GRO Register got the birth entry re-transcription wrong twice, but was corrected during the checks. However, despite the double verification checks errors still made their way into the indexes and some were subsequently corrected likely when people asked for a copy and found them wrong.
For example a birth entry entry for 1878 was corrected in 1939. Sometimes the entire line entry was superceeded by an update as indicated in the margin annotation in the second attachment. [it reads Clerical error, corrected by Register in the presence of the mother, see New Certified Copy]