Find Ancestors

bmd Report 25 Nov 2011 23:20
Paul; well said
Julie; are you perhaps a civil servant working in a reg office?you obviously didn't read my comments properly, I did not complain about the price, what I said was why do different reg offices around the UK charge different prices for the same cert and service, if every office charged the same price it would be fair whatever the price but lets have fairness.
____________________

Seeing as i posted back in March 2010 & you posted June 2011..im not sure how i would have read your comments before i posted.........When you have worked that one out please let me know
also no i don't work as a civil servant working in a reg office im actually at home recovering from having a mastectomy & also having 6 months worth of chemo

This is an old thread and the charges went up

Really not a lot of point still posting on this

Paul; well said
Julie; are you perhaps a civil servant working in a reg office?you obviously didn't read my comments properly, I did not complain about the price, what I said was why do different reg offices around the UK charge different prices for the same cert and service, if every office charged the same price it would be fair whatever the price but lets have fairness.
To those who say it would not be fair for other people to subsidise our hobbies, who suggested they should, I did not.
To the pensioner I too am apensioner but do not expect concessions I am simply asking that wherever you live in the uk whatever office you deal with, the cost of the certs should be the same, The service given is the same all over uk so the price should be.

Hi
I seem to be lucky to have my family ancestors living in Surrey. I just go to the surrey history records in Woking and there I can find Certificates on microfiches etc and print them off for 50p (perhaps they have go up as I haven't been this year yet)

Sorry so many of you find in expensive.

I must agree with madMeg about Macclesfield, and the staff at the cemetery office were very helpful too.

Sorry Madmeg ................but Bala,Holywell,Lampeter and ,Neath/Port Talbot and Alnswick are right up there among the best too....

I know its an old thread Shirley,but it did pop up on "my threads"so thought I would add some plaudits for some more excellent reg office staff..

Phone calls to ask if they have the correct one before posting most times,and indeed one sent the wrong one once and asked me to send it back as it was their mistake and sent me the correct one.. :-)

The extra mile has been taken by all for me and when dealing with Jones/Davies/Evans and so on to come back within a day with a "Jane Davies/Jones circa and poss born"after a phone call to them you cant but expect me to sing their praises... :-D

Have you seen how old this thread is? It was objecting to the rise to £9.25 in early 2010 which is now the standard price. :-D

"I do wish Julie, you were my employer, and I'd come into your office and ask for a 32% rise for no additional work, and see what your reply would be lol"

Paul, if you hadn't had a pay rise since 2003 then Julie would probably have been fairly sympathetic.

" the costs at some register offices seem to vary depending on which office you deal with,typical gov con "

Yes,they will vary because they come under the County Councils who will decide their own charges-not directly the government

If we are naming names, Macclesfield, Cheshire are the best in the world. Personal Service including phone calls if unsure, fast postal service, willing to look for anything. Macclesfield for the Award!

Sorry bmd, but do you mean to say that you pay a total of £30 per certificate, or is that what is in your 'kitty' at any one time?

BMD certs (with ref numbers) should only cost £9.25, including postage to anywhere, if you order from www.gro.gov.uk.

Are you ordering via another site who are making a profit, or is something else going on?

If you can't find the correct record number for ordering, always consider starting a thread on this board. Someone is bound to be able to help, and Ancestry do have a number of London PR images available

GRO are able to do a search within certain parameters. Someone else needs to give specific details on how to arrange it, but it is something along the lines of 3 years +/- a year you give, to the first record they come across which matches your criteria. If they can't find one, you've lost your £9.25 and you have to start again.

my sister and I have purchased about 50 certs we share the cost of each cert £15 each we too find that reg offices and GRO can be very sloppy and unprofessional sometimes ,they say cert not found, yet a few weeks later supplied with exactly the same info, they will say they have it.
I believe it is like all gov depts ,depends who you speak to some staff are helpful others utterly useless.The costs at reg offices seems to vary which office you deal with ,typical government con.

family research is a hobby like any other. all prices are going up.

my horses feed is now more expensive, but keeping them is a hobby and choice. and i choose to pay.

unfortunatly family research is not a hobby it is an addiction! and i will happily pay extra to get my fix. sometimes i will have to go cold turkey though. but the horses need to be fed!

the way i see it is i don't smoke or drink so the gov can't take my money that way, this is one addiction i give them money for and i'm ok with that.

Oh i agree FBG

I have come acroos some that have been completely unhelpful!!

Thats why i said 'most' the best have to be Lancashire....they are amazing. It has never been a bother for them to find data for me, even calling me back!

The best for burial data etc has been Wednesbury, they even came out to show us a 'patch of grass' where 'roughly' the OH's ancester was.

Even though there was nothing to see and only a guestimate as to where the grave actually was this guy made an effort to come out and meet us.

Maybe he just enjoyed the excuse to leave the office for a little while?


Tracey x

Tracey...
I hope you never have to send to Carmarthen for any certs..

3 wks this time for a birth and last time ,just before christmas,they said they couldnt find the one I was after,2 weeks later!
it must be in Lampeter they said,I said Lampeter have already searched but Ill ask again.
Lampeter said no again after another search that same day and a phone call to me the next morning to tell me the result..
Back to Carmarthen and 3 weeks later,oh dear,yes we have it after all.

So 6 weeks to get a birth from Carmarthen.

I fume about them as they are the worst organised and slowest reg office that I have ever sent to..

The GRO for me everytime if I can,even at £9.25p as at least I dont have to wait weeks.

I think the main problem is the ‘all in one’ hike. If the price had been incremental then it would have been more acceptable

Personally I’m lucky enough to be able to afford them, although I have most of what I need. But I do see it will be a problem for people on a tight budget

It’s as though the Government ‘forgot’ about the GRO and some MP has stumbled across the fact there has been no increase in years.......Eureka!!

Ginny
x

Eddie,

I used to do that all the time 'back in the day'

I am currently upto 250 certs still more to get.....

It's a mammouth task.... but def worth it.

T x

If everyone that has BMD certificates uploaded the details to BMDshare then we would all be able to save ourselves some of the costs.
I buy approx one cert per month and always put the details on BMD share for others to see.
At the present its a long shot finding the cert you require there but if more of us did it we'd all benefit.

I was going to make a comment on this which it appears is the same viewpoint as Root, why can't we have the same kind of process as SP?

I know there were several projects on the go around the mid 00's, but these have all gone by the wayside as time passes and the government runs out of cash.

I am happy to pay £7 and will possibly be happy to pay £10 (almost) because as i need a cert i don;t have a choice.

I do not think they are profiteering from me, i still believe we get a bloody good deal !!! If i order a Scottish cert i have to wait at least a month sometimes 6 weeks to get it. The GRO is alot faster than that!!

I have to say i rarely use the GRO these days directly, i always where possible, now use the local registry service. The certs arive in good time (2 days or so), the people are on the whole good natured and they treat you like a real person.

As with all hobbies there is an expense, and as has already been mentioned there has been little if no price rise for 7 years or more.

There is so much available for free these days, baptism records on sites like Lancs OPC or the Durham Online Project, there will become a time when the GRO will become almost obsolete...


Tracey x

Hi Paul,

I am half with you. I think the GRO provides a lousy service. The fee for a certificate is 23 quid for a 'fast service' (turnaround time one business day) but when I paid this extortionate amount they still took eight days to send it (nor counting the actual postage days). I got an apology but no refund of any of my money. My Dad always complains about 'rip-off Britain' and I think he's right. Increasing prices AND poorer services. The GRO should not put up charges unless it can guarantee it will provide a more efficient service.