Tips for purchasing the "right" birth/death certicate

[Marwite]

I'm making the leap from playing around on Ancestry to building up a tree based on more solid evidence.  This needs copies of birth and death certificates to back up hunches, suppositions, guesses, hints... and I don't have an unlimited supply of money to fund this habit.  So any tips on how to maximise the odds that the certificate you order matches the person you're researching?

(Apologies if this is a topic already done to death; I've rumaged around in old topics but not found anything. And I've happily bought a few marriage certs but with two names I feel the odds are better!)

[AntonyMMM]

Check exactly which Registration District covers the place you think the birth or death happened and narrow down the search that way. Areas changed over time - the Genuki website is good for getting the info you need.

[Cas (stallc)]

Welcome to Rootschat 😀 This is an international site.

What area UK or other? Depends where your research is.

http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/

Cas

[Marwite]

Firmly UK with the very occasional diversion to Ireland / US.  The certificates I'd like to see most are actually for my current location - Birmingham - which somehow makes me meaner about risking getting the wrong one.   

[Mair]

Hi

Depending which area you are looking at you may be able to narrow your search by cross checking OPC BMD against Freebmd.org.uk which is my usual first port of call.
OPC online parish clerk gives details in the parish register whilst the local BMD site will cover civil registrations on the local reference not the GRO reference and usually gives the place of registration eg registrar or church.

Local offices are good at checking other info you can give whilst the GRO will check more limited detail if there are still doubts over the certificate being ordered.

M

[groom]

You say you've been using Ancestry - don't order certificates through them, use the GRO who are much cheaper.

[pinefamily]

Not sure if you can do this through the GRO or the district RO's, but you can specify a birth certificate with only certain parents for example.

[Deirdre784]

Although it's usually a bit more expensive (£10-£12 per certificate compared to £9.25 from the GRO), if in any doubt about any event, I'd say go to your local registration office. The majority I've contacted are extremely happy to check details (eg parents names) before you buy.

You can specify details with the GRO but the certificates then take about 3 weeks to arrive; the local registration office will usually post in a day or two.

[dawnsh]

Not sure if you can do this through the GRO or the district RO's, but you can specify a birth certificate with only certain parents for example.

You can only do this at www.gro.gov.uk , when you start an online order their system asks if you know the reference details, at this point say no (even if you do have the details) and the next screens will ask you to confirm more information.

You will be charged £9.25 but if the GRO cannot find an exact match you will get a refund. Their exact matching is just that so if you don't give the full names of the parents exactly as they re on the certificate for example you won't get the cert.