GRO website

[jennifer c]

Hi, I have not been doing my family history for a while and I know there was a GRO website I could put the surname and mothers maiden name and it would show even if they do not show mothers maiden name on free BDM.

Can someone kindly talk me through it please.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Jennifer

[CaroleW]

https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/Login.asp

You need to register which is free

Births from 1837 - mid 1911 do not show maiden names on either freebmd or the GRO index.  If you find a birth on freebmd you can use the info to check for mmn on the above site

You can search 2yrs either side of any year from 1837 up to 1934

You can use the surname & mmn to search for other births

From mid- 1911 maiden names are shown on freebmd & GRO index

You can also use the above site to check for the full middle christian name(s) when only initials are shown on the index for the above period & also from 1984-2023.  The later period does not show mmn as this info is on the GRO index

[MollyC]

The GRO Index does show mmn from 1837.  If you want to search an extended period, say find all the children in a large family, step the date up 5 years at a time, i.e. your chosen year +/- 2years.  But you have to search for males and females separately, so it's a bit tedious.

GRO will show mmns after 1924, but only if you put the name into the search, it confirms it.  It only runs to 1934 anyway, because the project was not finished, and restarts at 1984.  For births with no father named it shows dashes, rather than repeating the mother's surname as in FreeBMD.

There are known to be errors and missing entries, which you can report from the foot of the search page, but only AFTER you have done a search.

[Zaphod99]

You can also do birth and death records from 1984 to 2023.

Zaph

[CaroleW]

.

[jennifer c]

Many thanks for such a great response, as usual you have solved my problem.

Jennifer

[AntonyMMM]

For births with no father named it shows dashes, rather than repeating the mother's surname as in FreeBMD.

The "dash" means that there is no mother's maiden name recorded - it always doesn't mean there is no named father on the entry.

[BushInn1746]

Hello Jennifer

If you need to do a wider search in years don't forget 'Free BMD' or if you want to check one that will not show on GRO gov.uk (I have been reporting missing ones as I find them).

Free BMD
https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Free BMD - Useful for searching for Marriages too and getting the details necessary to order a Marriage Certificate from GRO gov.uk

Some Church Marriage images from 1837 are online on subscription sites, but Registry Office and Nonconformist, e.g., Methodist, Catholic, Quaker and other faiths from 1837 are generally not.

Free BMD won't give you age at death from 1837 but age at death was shown in the later GRO printed indexes which you can download from the Free BMD website.

The other great thing about Free BMD was that you can click on a link and see the actual images of the GRO paper index and check slight spelling variations in surnames that Free BMD uploaded, for free, which the main subscription sites have.

Mark

[jennifer c]

Many thanks to all who have taken their time to help me, such a giving community.

Regards Jennifer