Missing birth record.

[wallise]

Just wondering if anyone has any advice.
My father in law, born in 1914 and deceased in 2000 only ever had a 'short' birth certificate. We would like to obtain the full certificate to help with researching that side of the family but there is no record of his birth on GRO index or on Ancestry (to which I subscribe). Has anyone got any suggestions ? Is the GRO index online always accurate?
Maybe he was adopted and if so does anyone know how to go about getting an adoption certificate. The curious thing is that  when I put in a search on Genes-reunited website  they appear to have a birth record but I would have to pay to see it and am suspicious as to why they would have a copy and not the official source. Does anyone use that website and is it reliable -if so I suppose I could subscribe for a month just to see what they have.
Any help or advice gratefully received!

[mosiefish]

Hi,

There was no official adoption until the 1920`s.  Personally I would contact the local registrars office where the birth was registered as they should have a copy of the full certificate.  The local registrars copied the births out and sent quarterly returns to the GRO and then the GRO copied them into a full index.  Many of these indexes have since been retyped.  So many reasons for missing a person off or being mistranscribed.

Mo
Added:  Genes Reunited will only have the GRO indexes and not the full birth certificates - these belong to the Registrar.

[Plummiegirl]

Also have you checked the following quarter rather than the quarter the birth is in.

IE Born October-December 1900 - but may not show up in 1900 but the first quarter 1901

If you have a short Birth Certificate, there is no reason why you should not be able to get the full one.

I only ever had a short Birth Certificate until a few years ago, when I finally ordered up a Full one.  Parents were skint when I was born and the short certificate was the cheapest option.

[toffeebear]

There can be mistakes in the index - my grandmother's birth should have appeared in 1924 but was indexed in 1925, in the correct quarter just a whole year later - and added at the bottom of the page too! (not that that makes a difference on the computer!).

Toffee

[Little Nell]

I have my grandmother's short birth certificate.  It gives the date of her birth and the date on which the birth was registered.  This latter date fell in the following quarter, which was also in the next year.

At the bottom, it gives the Registration district - and the sub-district.

Mistakes did occur when the main GRO index was compiled but if that fails, the local office should be able to track down the entry from the information on the short certificate e.g. entry 72 in Book No 32, plus the name and the dates.

Nell