Genealogy Chat

My mother had a sister,Alice Lilian Miller,b.1902, who died in hospital in Salisbury as a result of falling out of bed and hitting her head on the iron bedstead on Armistice Day in 1918 ,or so the story goes. I wanted to check this by looking at her death certificate ( Salisbury,Wiltshire 1918 Oct-Dec 5a 412) and sent off for the certificate,but had an e-mail from GRO to say that no trace of this could be found. Strange ! Where do I go now ?

I would try ringing Salisbury Register office and quote the name and quarter and year of death and see if they have a copy..

Jules x

Did you specify middle name of Lilian on the GRO order form?

On the index her name is recorded as Alice L Miller... perhaps on her death certificate the L doesnt stand for Lilian?


Gem

Thankyou Jules,Army wife, I'll have to try that. Yes, Gemma, I did put Lilian as her second name .Would GRO not check the index details and see that the details fit the application re location,surname,second name initial and date?

ALL the criteria you specify have to match, not just some of it. Your order was rejected because you put the middle name 'Lilian' which is not on the index.

This has caught many a member out thinking mistakenly that putting more information in than absolutely necessary will help - it doesn't.

I always order using exactly the info on the index reference

GRO have now stopped checking details on all the new price certificates, to them, it is either there or not, no partial refunds either.

The old Salisbury RD now comes under Wiltshire RD:

Wiltshire Copy Certificate Service, Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham, SN15 3QN
Tel: 01225 713007. E-mail: [email protected]

Yes that is true regarding reference checking, but if you put a name or part name that isn't on the index it will still be rejected. That bit hasn't changed.

GRO are very good but, with the massive increase in family research interest, they are snowed under.

On the telephone one of the ladies told me that they search the indexes using exactly what the enquirer has provided. They simply don't have time to try alternative criteria, so it is a single run search. If it doesn't come up - it's rejected.

It's quite possible that the actual death certificate does show her full name, but is indexed with only the middle initial rather than full middle names. I got one where only one middle initial was indexed, but the DC showed all three middle names!

when ordering any cert you should only put the info that shows on the GRO ref ,putting anything more is likely to get the request rejected especially now the GRO doesn't do any checking facility

Order from the local Register Office, they go the extra mile.

Yes, but it varies. Some local register offices, particularly the smaller less busy ones are very good.

On the other hand, some will not even entertain genealogical requests and direct you to the GRO. Others will, but you join the end of the queue, and have to wait, for a week or so.

I have a rellie who married 3 times, I ordered her certs but pout her maiden name of Woods on all 3 orders. The next day In realised what I had done and ordered the certs again but using her surname from her 1st marriage when ordering her 2nd marriage cert and then the 2nd marriage surname when ordering the 3rd. So far I have all 3 marriage certs plus a duplicate of the 2nd marriage cert.

Therefore what I am saying is I dont think they check everything for your order, as long as most of it matches.

What matters is that you quote the name of the person exactly as it is recorded on the index. So if the Index says Frederick A Smith you put just that, Not Fred A Smith or Frederic Albert Smith

As mentioned earlier, no other reference checks are now made.