Hi Kaz
Each birth, marriage and death certificate has two reference numbers. One is the one the local office gives and one is the national General Records Office number. These are index numbers to an actual page in the book of registrations. Everyone can access the index, and get the number, but you can only get a copy of the full entry by paying for it, usually quoting the ref. number. If you don't know the number, the local office will run a search for you first.
The local number is a string of letters and numbers - specific to the office, the national one is made up of: Year (1837 - present), Quarter (e.g the three month period that the registration occured in - Mar, Jun, Sept, Dec), Registration District (i.e. Shrewsbury), Volume number (I think Shrewsbury is 6b), and page number.
I'm assuming that you are going local, so you are asking them for a look-up of their index first. They should be able to find it without needing the mother's maiden name. That is, if you have given them a narrow date range and the name of the father - Charles is not a common name like Jones/Smith, etc
Another way of getting the certificate is by ordering it from the GRO. Here you will need the national ref number. You could try searching FreeBMD, Ancestry or 1837online for this.
Reading all this, it might be a bit confusing
There is probably a thread on one of the other boards that might help. I'll check and get back to you.
Gadget
