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you cannot view or download GRO certificates online unfortunately, and thats an excellent price.

there are plenty of sites doing commemorative certificates, family heralds, tartan, all that kind of stuff. so there must be a strong market for it all, I think its very popular in america.

and along with that there are several sites which sell GRO certificates for a profit without telling the customer that they can get them direct from the GRO for cheaper. these sites have not been told to stop doing so, only to stop pretending to be "official" or connected to the GRO in some way.

It is extremely worrying that you are contemplating offering such certificates without seemingly knowing what an official certificate looks like.

How do you intend to obtain the information to enter on your certificate?  Presumably you will need to purchase an official certificate.  How do you gaurantee that you have the correct certificate?  What experience do you have of reading old handwriting so that your information is correct?

What advantage do your certificates have over for example marriage certificates from the local registry office that can contain the original signatures of the people involved?

What sort of price do you envisage?

im familiar with the layout of a marriage certificate, but I dont know whether the copy ones from the GRO look the same, are in colour, or whether the ones ordered from register offices look any different. is there a standard design?

Tom, Am I correct in thinking that people would come to you with a particular certificate (be it their child's birth, their grandparent's marriage etc etc) and you would basically set out the information it contains in a decorative way in order that it can be framed?

(I think this is not David's interpretation of your idea  )

Can you please clarify.

is behindthefrogs David?

I haven't got that far actually! I just have an interest in marriage and its history, and along with that am quite artistic. So it came into my head to try and put that to use. Now you and behindthefrogs have given me a dilemma.

so, if im correct, I can do these certificates one of two ways:

a) ask for all relevant details, and just copy them over then post it off. cheap, easy, but they have to know the details themselves, and they could also do something as good if they put a bit of time into it.

b) order an official one, then use those details to copy across. a lot more expensive but easier for them.

do you or anyone else have any opinions on these methods?

I see several register offices offer such a service but not all. and the GRO one is £23. so perhaps if I can come in substantially below this it might be a good offer?

frustratingly few clues for a precise date!

im far from an expert but I would like to suggest it is before 1910 as there is no particularly large headwear, which became popular around this period.

also the two black hats on the ladies to the middle right look like some I have seen from the very late 19th century.

goodness me I wasn't expecting so much information!!

thank you ALL, that must have taken a lot of time out of your day.

my grandad's aunt described stephen wilkinson as a martinet, and that he was not a popular man.