Do you get all certificates?

[humanracer]

Hi, if you have enough data to prove that a particular person is your ancestor, do you still also get the other certificates too?

I mean part of me wants to get the birth,marriage and death certs of everyone but this might prove costly (even on the cheap scotlandspeople), especially if I already have the proof with just the marriage certificate

[Billyblue]

So your heading is really "Do you get all certificates?"  ??

It's really up to you.  Like you say, it can get to be expensive, even if spread over many years.
If you can get the information in other ways, it may be that you don't need to get every single one.
As long as the 'non-certificated' information is reliable, e.g. a newspaper notice versus someone else's tree on A*****            

Sometimes you need the certificate to prove lineage, for entry to specific types of organisations.

Dawn M

[Mesrne]

I can't justify shelling out that kind of money for certificates unless I'm a direct descendant of that individual.

[Nick29]

There's only one site to use in England & Wales to get certificates - the GRO, where the standard fee for a certificate is £9.25.

I usually get a certificate if I think it could provide additional data e.g. the informant on a death certificate, or a witness at a marriage.

[GR2]

My family research is mainly based in Scotland. I tend to go to New Register House in Edinburgh for a day. It costs £15 to see any bmd certificate, will, census or parish register entry. If I'm well organised and have a plan of what I intend to search for, I can see several hundred certificates in a day. It does make a difference if you see the original certificates. You can find where a family lived at the time each child was born, see changes in occupations, pick up relationships through witnesses and informants etc.

For example, I made an assumption about the parents of a 4x great grandmother who died before civil registration, but could not prove it. I found the death certificate of someone who would have been a younger sister, if I was right. Found one of her sons staying with my family in a census where he was listed as a cousin, thus confirming the initial assumption. On another occasion I found someone described as blind on the 1911 census. On the birth certificate of his last child he signed with an X mark, although he had written a full signature before. That gave a date for his blindness. If you are after family history as well as genealogy, viewing certificates is invaluable.

Graham.

[Plummiegirl]

If your ancestors are London based then you could strike it lucky and find marriage records on the Ancestry website (churches only).
This has proved a real money save for me, but came a bit too late for some of my earlier purchases, many of which are also on Ancestry.
They also have a large amount of London parish Baptism's.

The records go up to around 1925 - have not found much after 1922.

But every little helps.   Also there are lots of Lancashire records on Ancestry, great for my Liverpool ancestors!

[Nick29]

Ancestry's LMA birth, marriage and burial records have probably helped me more than the 1911 census 

[barryd]

Some church baptisms have the birthday AND the baptism day of the child. However occasionally the birth certificate has a slightly different day for the birth than the church record shows. Then the birth certificate is the official birthday rather than the one given in the parish record. 

[Sloe Gin]

I don't get all the certificates, no.  There is often plenty of other data out there to prove a line or connection.  I get them if I am stuck (and I would get lots more if money supply was unlimited, or if they were much cheaper!) because sometimes there is information - such as address, witness, informant - which can provide clues to help progress.

It's worth remembering that what is written on a cert is not necessarily the truth!

There's only one site to use in England & Wales to get certificates - the GRO, where the standard fee for a certificate is £9.25.

You are forgetting that certificates can also be obtained from the local register office where the event was registered.  Same price (well, £9 + postage or sae) but often better value when they are able to supply a scan of the original, rather than the GRO transcript.  Sometimes signatures prove to be very helpful.