As you may or not realises, I am a professional researcher who charges for research work. One of the things that make me question some other professional providers of information and in particular are BMDs certificates and the charges they demand.
I think that is outrageous to charge £20 or £30 for finding a possible event on the GRO and other county BMDs sites. Why pay one of the many online services available for something that most people can access at their own public library, certainly in the UK? Yes there obviously exceptions... but a certificate usually can cost between £9.25 and £11.00
I regularly tell my clients, in such cases, that they can find the information for themselves at a much lower cost as my time costs money. Am I shooting myself in the
foot? In the short term maybe, but truly the researcher's task has to be looked in the longer view. They and I supply information that is not readily available online, or even it is, with a much greater background knowledge.
Family history or genealogy research does not come cheap when you have to purchase certificates, but choose the correct option. Searching through often very dirty archive material is not an option that most people would opt for. I really do know what I am talking about as I have discovered many items in several archives that they did not understand the relevance of until I informed them.
In conclusion what I am saying, do not get ripped off by so called certificate services. In most cases you can do it yourself for probably at half the cost. There are a vast number of parish records which can be seen online, most of which are available at local at local UK libraries.
