GRO indexes on gro.gov.uk !

[bibliotaphist]

Having to specify male or female and a search of only +/- 2 years of a specified date is a bit limiting, so a broad search on other sites followed by a search on GRO when I have some strong possibilities is what I'm doing at the moment.

Has anyone found any errors yet? I have found death of Mary Ann Eltham Q4 1837 Birmingham aged 13 years, but in reality she was 13 months when she died

I have a four-month old's death, indexed as 4 years. I don't think it's handling ages at death given in months properly yet.

[tillypeg]

Yes, LizzieL, just typing this as you posted:

Watch out for age at death for infants.  What used to be shown as age 0 now appears as years, when in fact some could be months.  I have found three in my tree who were aged 3 months, 8 months & 11 months at death now showing as 3, 8 & 11 years.  A little mite whose death cert stated she was only 1 hour old is showing up as 0, also 12 hours and 20 hours showing age 0.

I have put amendments through to the GRO at the bottom of the results page "report it to the GRO" though I am sure they are aware of this.

[carol8353]

Has anyone found any errors yet? I have found death of Mary Ann Eltham Q4 1837 Birmingham aged 13 years, but in reality she was 13 months when she died

Yes my great great grandad's surname (b 1841, 2 weeks after census day!),which is Rogers,is down as Rogirs.

When I checked to find more siblings of course he didn't come up.

[Romilly]

LOL Carol, - I think I did crack up looking for him!!
I've been looking for about 40yrs now, but can still only find him on the 1901 and 1911 Censuses...
Ancestry says he's Buried at St Andrew's Kingsbury, - but they deny all knowledge of him.
Romilly

No luck with this new GRO info yet then?

There's still too many with the same name:-( Problem is it's all very common names, - William James Wilson, Born (Aprox) 1860/'61.
 On the 1901 and 1911 he gives his place of birth as 'Manchester, Lancs'. If I put that into the new Search it comes up with NIL results, and so there must be something wrong with the info he gave...
And if I don't put 'Manchester' in the Reg box, it comes up with 21 results... I have previously ordered some of these Certs, and none of them fit with the info he gave on his Marriage Cert:-(
Why do some people have to be so tricky?

Romilly

[Sloe Gin]

What does it mean when one of the children has a different mother's maiden name than the others??

Children proven by censuses and baptisms to belong to the correct parents but each child has Hearn as the mother's maiden name then one is Graves? And another family, all children have Glover as the mother's maiden name and one is Turrell? Weird.

Another possibility is that the mother has, for some reason, used both names at different times.

I've got someone who was born and baptised with the surname Wood.  But when she married she used the name Ellis, which was her mother's maiden name, and her father is shown as John Ellis when he should be John Wood.  I'd assumed that either they were trying to cover their tracks (both were under 21 and perhaps a parent didn't approve), or that there was a misunderstanding somewhere. 

However, searching through the registrations of her children, several are registered with mmn Ellis and others as Wood.  So I conclude that she did use the surname Ellis at some stage before marriage.  Why, who knows.  There's no illegitimacy or step-parents involved, and there is no doubt that I have the right family. 

[Nick_Ips]

In the very last days of the old Family Records Centre I spent hours grabbing as much data as I could from the indexes - having some experience of public sector IT projects I was alarmed at promises we would be able to access improved data online through Dove.

We didn't have to wait long did we 

What would we (and the GRO) have done without FreeBMD?

[AntonyMMM]

As far as the maiden names shown on entries are concerned it is worth remembering that birth registers don't actually have a space for the maiden name until quite recently.

The maiden name shown on the index is assumed from the the "formerly" name shown for most married women - however, these aren't always correct or shown correctly, especially when there has been more than one marriage.

[Jon_ni]

also found a 2 month old indexed as 2 years, but can't prove that as its before age was stated on standard index and agree records with no mother's maiden name = illegitimate, for those known to be from Warwickshire parish register images.

future price, who knows but expect they won't change quickly as the £6 & £8 prices are stipulated in the S.I. approved by Parliament so presumably any amendment to that would also have to pass through the Houses. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/980/pdfs/uksi_20160980_en.pdf

With the Irish Government releasing pdf images of their BMD with 100/75/50 year cut-off online for FREE only 6 weeks ago one can only hope (the GRO format being of course set up by pre-partition by HM Government so essentially exactly the same as England & Wales). What I find useful there is get not just the scanned line from the book as currently pasted into paper GRO copies but the whole page of the Register Book. Having additional entries & names makes deciphering the hand-writing of place names etc easier, can see how the Register formed his letters.
For example in the attached image the birth place is Union Street, Lurgan. However, what one also sees is the 2 stage verification of the Master GRO book's transcriptions (held in Dublin) from the Local Register entry books. Signed as true copy by 2 people and one sometimes sees errors circled and corrections annotated. As I had previously paid for some BMD from GRONI for Belfast (from the Local books) I was able to compare myself and confirm that signatures on marriages for Witnesses and bride & groom where the surname differed in spelling from the minister's entry above were indeed duplicated and X mark if there was one & no comment if it was signed.

[coombs]

I am thinking of buying another sub to SEAX Essex ancestors as I seem to have found a child of my 3xgreat grandfather by his second wife. Until yesterday I never thought they had any children. Ellen Stock, mmn Letch, in 1854. John Stock wed Rebecca Letch in 1850. May see if I can find a baptism as I have an idea where they were living in 1854 as his sons by his first wife wed in Hockley.