Obtaining BMD info locally in Scotland

[jimr]

I may be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs but I'm new to this board and it seems that a lot of people are asking how to get details of BMDs that fall outside the GRO limits. If they live in Scotland  they should contact the local Registrar's search room  and ask them to perform a search and provide a transcription (not a certificate as this costs significantly more). I use the local office in Aberdeen on a regular basis, I visit in person( normally by appointment) and the search assistant will then use the Registrars gateway to SPeople to get the required info. They apply the same time limits as SPeople in respect of printouts, so you have to transcribe anything later.It costs £15 per hour and I find I can get about 180-200 entries in about two hours. You need to prepare your requirements in advance but since it works out at 30-40p per entry it is worthwhile especially when you are doing a one name study

Apologies to those of you who were aware of this already

JimR

[MonicaL]

Hi JimR

That's great advice which hopefully will help many people with their research 

Monica

[JulzDS]

Sorry if this is really dim, but could you explain more about what you mean? What kind of records time-wise will they search for and will they give all the information on the record or just the basic information?

Sorry again if it's me being dim. Julz

[jimr]

Julz

Basically they provide the same as you get from SPeople with the same restrictions, the main difference is that for example a birth after 1908, instead of the dreaded 'No Image' they can view the record and will allow you to transcribe the info from the screen. At £15 per hour I can get about 100 certificates in that time which works out at 15p per cert rather than than £1.20 if you include 1 credit for the initial search. What I did was to carry out initial searches for all the BLACKHALL BMDs and then when I go to the registrar I take a list with me of the certs I want to obtain. I have also found in my case that the search assistant is into genealogy as well and it I find something that needs a bit more info then she is quite happy to carry out a search, and her search facilities are better than those provided on the SPeople web page that us normal mortals see, a point that I forgot to make in my original post was that the search room has access to all the censuses as well, and the original paper copies of the registers up to about 1890 in the case of mine in Aberdeen. I can't guarantee what is available at your local registrar but it is probably worth a visit to find out, you may even get the info on your local council website

Jim

Don't hesitate to come back if there is anything else unclear

[kickbuttgirlie]

Thanks for posting this - I've been meaning to book some time at St Nicholas House for a while but never got round to it. How busy have the search rooms been? or is it best to book some time regardless?

KBG

[JulzDS]

that's excellent Jim thank you.

That would save me going to Edinburgh or Glasgow if our local one did it (I'm disabled so need my OH who is uninterested in Genealogy to come with me).

I'll email them and ask. Thank you Julz

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

Many of the local registrars are now part of the DIGROS project, participating offices submit and have access to the digitised records.

The main advantage is that any participating office can access the entire database and is not restricted to events within their specific district, particularly useful for anyone who can access one office but requires searches for events in a different reg district.

To check if an office subscribes to the project it's worth visiting the relevant council website and searching the registrars or register office pages.


As an example the Highland Council site gives the following information relating to searches and copies of extracts from the register

If you require a certified extract (birth, marriage, death or civil partnership) you may apply to the Registrar of the district where the event was registered. Alternatively all computerised registration offices in Scotland can provide extracts for any event registered in Scotland.

With effect from 1 April 2009 the statutory fee for an extract is £14.00, unless the event was registered in the current year, in which case the fee is £9.00. Applications may be made in person, or by post.

[JulzDS]

Jim

Just wanted to say thanks for this. I sent an email off to our local Registrar's and although they don't have a search room they do offer to go in and can take pencil notes while their staff member operates the computer. £10 an hour they charge which is great.

Thanks very much
Julie

[jimr]

For anyone in the Aberdeen area, the phone number for the search room is
01224 522033

I normally book a week or two in advance as they do get busy as they will also deal with queries over the phone, booking the cost to your debit/credit card. Never used this so no idea what it costs