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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: RW1 on Monday 15 January 24 11:10 GMT (UK)
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Hi
I have found a death entry on freebmd.org.uk -
Charles W Butler; March 1945; (age) 56; Ilford; 4a; 523
But I can't find it on GRO (there are 4 other entries for 4a, 523, same period, which I can find).
I did a "Missing entry in the death index" report, which came back from GRO -
"Investigated – No amendment required" and "Indexed data is correct."
I tried to contact GRO, but halfway through the contact form it outlined in RED with the message "THERE IS A PROBLEM" - it kept doing this, even after disconnecting from the internet and starting again.
So, I resent the missing report - this time putting a fuller message in the free text. GRO came back again, this time with -
"Investigated – No amendment required" and "Indexed data not available."
Can anyone else find this, please?
Many thanks.
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Don't see it but if you are after the cert you could order from the local district rather than the quarterly copy.
Iflord registers seem to be held by Redbridge or Barking & Dagenham now.
https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/reg/districts/ilford.html
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I did a "Missing entry in the death index" report, which came back from GRO -
"Investigated – No amendment required" and "Indexed data is correct."
That response suggests they have the entry in the online index, but indexed as something else ( if there is more than one name on the entry perhaps), or more likely the transcriber has come up with an alternative spelling of the name.
Because of the way the GRO search engine is locked down, finding these missing entries (which are usually there somewhere) can be very difficult.
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F M P are recording two versions both with the same details
Charles W
William C
It looks as if GRO might have indexed it as William C
Gadget
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No, I cannot find it. It depends if this was a surname you were expecting to find. A drawback of the GRO index is that if there has been an error in the surname there is no way of searching the GRO without entering a correct surname. Unlike the very flexible FreeBMD.
I reported a similar case in December, same result. It was peripheral to my interest so I haven't done anything further yet. I fail to see how they can say "Indexed data is correct" when there is no data!
Amended: Those two entries are on different pages: 523 and 525. They are separate entries even if they are the same person. Do "new rules" allow the GRO to delete one of them?
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Snips from the registers
Also they are definitely listed as Butler.
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[quote author=MollyC link=topic=879510.msg7517867#msg7517867 date=1705335743!
Amended: Those two entries are on different pages: 523 and 525. They are separate entries even if they are the same person. Do "new rules" allow the GRO to delete one of them?
[/quote]
No, it is there. I think it's 523 but has been mistranscribed in freebmd.org.uk as 525 - look at the scanned image. It could be a 3, not 5.
Many thanks for all your replies.
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But it's not on GRO as William, either?
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There is a probate record that reads:
BUTLER William Charles otherwise Charles William of 22 Oaks-lane Newbury Park Ilford Essex died 27 January 1945 Administration Lluandudno 27 March to Alice Sarah Butler widow.
Effects £948 3s 6d.
I did already look for a admin/probate record for Charles Butler, but not for William Butler. Even the record above is not cross-referenced in Probate Records as Charles William otherwise William Charles.
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Here he is
CHARLES, WILLIAM
Age at Death (in years): 56
GRO Reference: 1945 M Quarter in ILFORD Volume 04A Page 523
Yes, Charles indexed as the surname by GRO
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And William Charles is not in FreeBMD. They seem to have lost Butler somewhere in the re-indexing.
Suggest you report an error on this entry to correct the surname and the forenames, see what happens!
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Thank you so much. Would never have found this without your help.
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suggest:
William C Butler married Alice S Hills
JunQ 1917 Stepney 1c 453
(There is also a marriage of a Charles W in 1916, spouse surname in italics, but sorting through dodgy page numbers, she was named Violet.)
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Yes, I've found them on the 1939 Register at the same address as the Administration. They have two daughters.
Correct marriage is HILLS.
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Here he is
CHARLES, WILLIAM
Age at Death (in years): 56
GRO Reference: 1945 M Quarter in ILFORD Volume 04A Page 523
Yes, Charles indexed as the surname by GRO
Very well found - that will be an interesting entry to look at ( to work out why they don't think an amendment is necessary !)
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This is my favourite one where the answer was...."Investigated No amendment required" and "Indexed data not available."
My submission in 2021 was.... All of the December quarter birth registrations in 1902 for the district of Neath are missing from the index (about 400 births)
Debra :)
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I have made a third submission - this time an amendment rather than a missing one - and we'll see what response is made by the GRO.
Bearing in mind that the GRO probably works on the same basis as others with customer service teams (ie as long as 80% / insert your own % here) of customer contact results in no further contact) that is the quality of service we have to accept. In the private sector (fuel companies, for instance) they will eventually offer you a "shut-up-and-go-away" minimal gratuity and, if that fails, challenge you to go to the relevant ombudsman, etc.
What they won't do, is change their processes.
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They "should" have looked at the entry when you submitted the original error report ( and they responded with "no amendment required"), but who knows.
Have you obtained a digital image to see what their copy of the record actually says ?
I know they just dismiss a huge proportion of supposed errors or missing entries that are based on the on-line index not matching the "old" version (as seen on FreeBMD ect) because the two don't, and shouldn't, always match due to the different indexing rules used.
It may be they have just dismissed this on that basis without really investigating.
Let us know what happens
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I have ordered this, but mistakenly ordered the PDF (£7) instead of the Digital Image (£2.50)!
More haste....etc!
I have an estimated date of delivery of 22 January 2024 and will post here again once received.
Complete nightmare this.....
Hopefully some orphanage records will come in the post today relating to another member of this Greene-Butler family.
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I'm glad you have made another query. Some time ago I had accumulated long lists of FreeBMD entries. About 6 months ago I started checking them against the GRO index, but only those where I expected to find additional information. e.g. age at death, mmn, initials expanded to forenames. I have submitted 48 queries.
They have amended 32 of these. Some of the others may well be incorrect spellings, either as recorded or copied to the GRO. I found two errors in Registration Disticts. They have admitted that Thoreditch was probably Shoreditch, but insist there is a place named Doncester, despite it not being in their dropdown list.
In one case "Online Index entry updated" was followed by "Indexed data is correct". (It has been corrected.)
In another case they had a mmn as "E...holme".
I supplied the missing letters sk and a ref. to another birth from the same couple, which they accepted!
I suppose I should check all the rest.
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Good work, MollyC.
I have reported 18. 13 have been amended; 4 have not; and of course the last we wait with bated breath for an answer.
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I have submitted 53 reports, 9 rejected for various reasons. 2 were repeats, 1 of which was supposed to have been corrected but was not, another was corrected on the second report but not on the first. Several of the rejections were for missing entries.
I will persevere.
Ray
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2 replies from GRONI recently surprised me as the quarterly copies sent pre-partition to Dublin were quite clear (GRONI index the original Local Register ledgers as that is all they hold prior to 1922). They have accepted many and occasionally a rejection has made me purchuse their image and indeed see a different spelling or date due to clerical copy errors that slipped through.
Amended Fields: Deceased Surname : Hewitt
Additional Information
Emma Hewitt died 18 March 1911, aged 13 days. Her twin brother Stewart is the next entry D/1911/51/1007/43/485. Their births U/1911/51/1007/62/464 & 463 were registered as Hewitt the same day as their deaths by their father.
"We have checked the original registration and can confirm that the information displayed on the website is correct. Therefore, we are not in in a position to make the proposed change(s)"
I couldn't find her death entry in their index, 1st 3 characters of surname is a required minimum, but to index it differently to her twin brother? The registrar clerks at the time didn't do that.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1911/05398/4507495.pdf
another one was a marriage 27 Dec 1893 that they say is indexed correctly as 27 Dec 1894 even though the previous marriage is 25 Dec 1893 and the next one 2 Feb 1894 per their own index. The Decemeber ones appear on the quarterly copy signed and dated 31 Jan 1894. So Dublin had a copy of the marriage before it happened! last entry on the copy https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1893/10614/5866896.pdf
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Bearing in mind that the GRO probably works on the same basis as others with customer service teams (ie as long as 80% / insert your own % here) of customer contact results in no further contact) that is the quality of service we have to accept.
Expect - yes ; Accept - no >:(
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My THIRD and last attempt to report this error (narrative in free text field repeated below):
"This is William Charles BUTLER - the surname is missing and the second forename has been used as the surname instead. I reported this as a missing entry twice - it obviously does not come up on a GRO search for BUTLER. Twice you said you have investigated and no amendment was necessary. It would be nice to understand what form your investigation took and why you stated twice that no amendment was necessary, when clearly this was incorrect."
Response from GRO:
"Investigated – Online Index entry updated" - there was no further GRO comment.
Clearly this is not updated as it still fails to show under BUTLER.
Death Certificate confirms:
When and Where Died. "Twenty seventh January 1945 22 Oaks Lane UD"
Name and Surname. "William Charles otherwise Charles William Butler"
Presumably, GRO has decided he was known as "Mr W Charles" or "Mr C W Butler" and has decided to index only under the former! ::)
Thanks for the help in finding this - as I say, he's not my man! :'(
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Death Certificate confirms:
When and Where Died. "Twenty seventh January 1945 22 Oaks Lane UD"
Name and Surname. "William Charles otherwise Charles William Butler"
Presumably, GRO has decided he was known as "Mr W Charles" or "Mr C W Butler" and has decided to index only under the former! ::)
Not great by GRO but your interpretation is correct I think. .... GRO will only index by what the entry says, not what it should say.
The entry was incorrectly worded by the registrar - it should have said "William Charles Butler otherwise Charles William Butler".
I believe (although haven't yet confirmed) that the on-line index rules used for creating entries that have multiple names only record the first one recorded, unlike the older indexes which created a separate index entry for each name shown when "otherwise" or "formerly" was used.
At that time the convention to show the surname in capital letters hadn't been introduced so as far as they are concerned his full name, and the one that would be indexed, was William Charles ( with Charles as a surname).
When the older written index was compiled they appear to have used a little more common sense - but that would have been done by GRO staff, not by outsourced companies (possibly overseas) who have been given a set of strict rules to work from.
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Thanks, Antony MMM - great to have your explanation.
I seem to remember you had an FOI with GRO on their conventions, etc? Did you hear anything?
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I seem to remember you had an FOI with GRO on their conventions, etc? Did you hear anything?
Still waiting - they sent me some from the 1960s, not what I asked for.
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This thread has made me pursue the irony of some half-remembered facts about a house which I was taken to see when I was 6 years old. One of my GRO rejects was a forename Norwood, a maiden name used as first or second forename for numerous people in an extended family, down to a gt gt grandchild in 1950. For one birth in 1880, GRO has it as Horwood and will not be moved.
Norwood's father was a congregationalist minister whose work took him to Yorkshire, Cornwall, London and back. Then in 1900 he retired to the coast and built a house, which he named "The Norwoods". The address is Trafalgar Road, Birkdale, Southport. Sounds familiar? If the staff at the GRO would take a stroll from their office at Smedley's Hydro they would find The Norwoods a short distance down the road.
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If you've contacted the GRO and they won't update their database then you could add a postem to the corresponding FreeBMD entry. Perhaps a brief note for how to find it in the new GRO index and/or an explanation of what was recorded on the certificate.
The discussions pinned to the top of the Common Room includes one on postems and how to use them.
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If you've contacted the GRO and they won't update their database then you could add a postem to the corresponding FreeBMD entry. Perhaps a brief note for how to find it in the new GRO index and/or an explanation of what was recorded on the certificate.
The discussions pinned to the top of the Common Room includes one on postems and how to use them.
Postem already done for both freebmd entries. Also an amendment request to freebmd for the mistranscription by them of one of the pair.
Anyone coming through that route will be directed to the entry in GRO.