12 February 2012

How to pay more for England and Wales civil registration certificates

Suppose you want a birth, marriage or death certificate for an English (or Welsh) ancestor. You can choose to pay more or less. Here are some options:

£9.25 including postage, from the General Register Office for England and Wales online ordering service.
£13.60 from UK GRO Certificates
£13.99 from UK Official Services.
£24.95 from Vital Certificates
US$38.00 from Ancestryshop

According to a post by Else Churchill of the Society of Genealogists the UK Advertising Standards Authority has now upheld three separate complaints about third party websites misleading customers into believing that they were ordering from the government's own website. Those third party sites are: UK GRO Certificates, UK Official Services and Vital Certificates. 

According to Registrar General Sarah Rapson "It is always quicker, cheaper and safer to deal directly with the General Register Office for certificate orders."

Why pay more?


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3 comments:

  1. Susan12 February, 2012 09:49

    Thank you for this info, as most genealogists are kind and sharing people, it's important to bring these matters to our attention, so that we don't get "fleeced" !

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10 February, 2015 06:29

    According to Sarah Rapson, things are done quicly, I personally waited 18 working days, and the results came back as a no trace.

    Went to the private organisation www.ukofficialservices.co.uk and they managed to find the overseas birth record and I received it in 10 working days.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous29 March, 2015 12:33

    Had the same problem and was recommend to use a different organisation https://www.ukofficialrecords.co.uk might be the same organisation, they checked if my record exists when I called them up. Great Service didn't have to wait 20 working days for a response.

    ReplyDelete