GRO indexes on gro.gov.uk !

[coombs]

Well I commend those who did look at all the birth registers prior to 1911 and noted down MMN, and the deaths before 1866.

[cuffie81]

The phonetic searches (metaphone) are quite slow for me, often timing out. I suspect they're calculating the keys for the names in the DB on the fly. Or possibly they are storing the keys in the DB but they're badly indexed. That's pure speculation though. Hopefully they can resolve it as it's not much use at the moment.

Looking at their code they appear to have handling in place for wildcard searches, using underscores, but they haven't enabled the option in the UI. Hopefully they'll enable that soon.

Curiously, the code also has some commented out options for searching marriages & civil registrations and overseas births, marriages, deaths & civil registrations. It may be too soon to speculate but it looks promising...

[Jon_ni]

reading some earlier posts here & elsewhere the initial Parliamentiary proposal was to change the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 to permit digital images to be generated, this bill was requested withdrawn so it could include marriages. Perhaps they made a start on Births & Deaths but instructed the Software Developers to include the code for Marriages too, unfortunately the funding then ran out for the project.

18 Nov 2014 "but the clause seeks to amend only the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, which does not provide for the issuing of marriage certificates. We would expect any amendment that provides for a change to the issuing of marriage certificates to be included in the separate marriage legislation, which is the Marriage Act 1949....the clause as currently drafted fails overall to achieve the intended aim of opening up as wide a range of records as possible to greater public access...On that basis, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldhansrd/text/141118-gc0001.htm#14111860000379

[ReadyDale]

Another option on the no MMN question. I have had a couple with no MMN, where the mother was in the workhouse infirmary for the birth. So possibly (without buying the cert) the birth was registered by a workhouse official who didn't know the MMN.

[ReadyDale]

Also, meant to ask. I have seen three now where after the usual volume and page details, it says "Occasional Copy: A"

Any idea what that means?

[Jon_ni]

Also, meant to ask. I have seen three now where after the usual volume and page details, it says "Occasional Copy: A"

All I can think of is from recent searches of the Irish GRO books sometimes there were additional pages (more often marriages when a minister sent his churches quarterly batch in late). There when do a search & find a name it normally offers one complete pdf page, but sometimes there are 2. Correction of a mistake in the copy where they had mixed two entry lines from the original into one in the Master Transcript so they rewrote part of the page or maybe a late birth registration. Sometimes see these late registrations if open the FBMD or Ancestry images and see an asterix in the typewritten alphabetical list and an hand written annotatation at the bottom. FBMD has a lightning symbol to indicate them I think. Others may have a more definite answer.
http://www.freebmd.org.uk/late-entry-help.html

[Guy Etchells]

Project DoVE was one part of a three part plan.

The first part project  DoVE (Digitisation of Vital Events), was to digitise the GRO's records of birth, marriage and death. This ran for three years and ended in 2008 when the contractor pulled out.
By that time only the birth records up to 1934 and death records up to 1957 had been scanned.

See http://www.rootschat.com/links/01isx/

The second part EAGLE (Electronic Access to GRO Legacy Events) is what the GRO use to supply certificates to the general public.

The third part was MAGPIE (MultiAccess to GRO Public Index of Events), was intended to make the indexes available to the public via a website the new index.

In addition a Digitisation and Indexing project to complete the digitisation of BMD records plus index and update the ordering process was later started
This was suspended in 2010.
Estimates (as of August 2012) for the completion of the digitisation project were £25-30 million.

Cheers
Guy

[rosie99]

I have found an instance of an Amelia listed as a Male so if you are using a first name in your search it is worth searching under both sexes

[ScottH]

Thanks to this I've found/confirmed a few details on missing children.

Even better it looks like I've found the birth record of one of my great x 3 grandfathers. William Baines born about 1854 in North Clifton, Nottinghamshire (Newark RD) appears to have been recorded as William Bean. There were 3 William Baines also born in Newark RD between 1854 and 1856. In the past I had ordered certificates with the fathers name so they would only post them out if correct. Always wondered if they really were wrong, mothers maiden name shows they were.

Unfortunately I still can't find the birth of another great x 3 grandparent, Sarah Dunckley (or Dunkley, Dunklin etc) born about 1858 in Bilston, Staffordshire (should be Wolverhampton RD). Mothers maiden name was Lockley. Parents Richard and Mary married December 1858 so she may have been registered as Lockley, but all the births of Sarah Lockley's have a mothers maiden name. Any ideas?