GRO Death registration

[Jon_ni]

One wonders about the technology used in 1985 to make & transmit the copies from Camden to GRO HQ then at St Catherine's House, Kingsway, London. Presumably moved on from Victorian clerical copying to photocopies of the Camden entries posted or perhaps 'faxed'.
On receipt then the pages bundled into the correct Volumes, numbered at top, and names entered on a computer of the era to produce the alphabetical index (the indexes are computerised from 1984 onwards). Was the 1990's before computerisation of records at local Registrar's level started and not linked nationwide till 2007.
The original bound ledgers are still in Camden https://www.camden.gov.uk/get-a-copy-of-a-certificate

[AntonyMMM]

I believe there was a period in the 1980s when returns were sent to GRO by photocopying the local entries. How GRO managed them in their system I have no idea. Each entry would be an A4 copy so the old system of having a number (10) of entries per page would no longer apply, but GRO carried on using page numbers, at least for a while.

It does mean that for this period you may actually get a copy of the original record when ordering a certificate from GRO - something that doesn't apply at any other time.

The duplicates in the indexes are usually explained by names being recorded on register entries as "X otherwise (or formerly known as) Y", something registrars are encouraged to do. The entry then appears in the index under each name variation.

My own mother's death, in 2022, appears 3 times in the GRO index for that reason.

[Jon_ni]

The duplicates in the indexes are usually explained by names being recorded on register entries as "X otherwise (or formerly known as) Y", something registrars are encouraged to do. The entry then appears in the index under each name variation.

As seen in the FreeBMD snip (accurately from the GRO printout images) by Sharp, Desmond also being indexed as Marshall, Desmond on page 1583, and by Lord John Walker + John Walker, but can't think why Sharp, Desmond appears twice.

Good point about the 10 entries if photocopied, how many births on an local full ledger page? was it 5? Know was 2 for marriages (from the bound parish ones online) vs 4 on the loose leaf quarterly copies the parish returned to the GRO.

[AntonyMMM]

Good point about the 10 entries if photocopied, how many births on an local full ledger page? was it 5? Know was 2 for marriages (from the bound parish ones online) vs 4 on the loose leaf quarterly copies the parish returned to the GRO.

Once the format went to portrait for births & deaths, each entry became a single page and they are kept in a binder - so one entry per page.

[KGarrad]

By a strange coincidence, I was recently looking at a 1987 marriage.
The image link, from FreeBMD shows an A4 page of a computer printout.

[Jon_ni]

The image link, from FreeBMD shows an A4 page of a computer printout.

Just looked at an 1987 one. May be a computer printout but not A4, closer to A3,  likely continuous form paper/tractor-feed paper for a dot matrix printer.

[KGarrad]

The image link, from FreeBMD shows an A4 page of a computer printout.

Just looked at an 1987 one. May be a computer printout but not A4, closer to A3,  likely continuous form paper/tractor-feed paper for a dot matrix printer.

A4 and A3 have the same ratios of width to height - A4 is exactly half of an A3!
The A series of paper sizes has a ration of 1.414:1. The square root of 2

Fanfold paper, for dot matrix printers was commonly 9.5 by 11 inches.

[Jon_ni]

14-7/8" x 11" was more like what I was thinking of from old parts/stores lists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Continuous_form_paper_(14p875_x_11).jpg

[meekhcs]

Just to let everyone know I am still waiting for a reply to my query from the GRO.

Incidentally the Copy death cert I received appears to be a photocopy of the original detail with the actual signature of the informant.