Ordering certificates from a Local Registry Office

[Copper1]

I have just found - after reading the web page for Peterborough Registry Office, they cannot after all issue certificates by post, and have not been able to do so since C-19 began "due to not having access to their registers held in their archive" (store?). They returned my payment and advised me to contact the GRO. Luckily the death was found on a free search of the online "Indexes" so the  online order & card payment was completed by a friend [registered with GRO] to get it for me.
Apparently the GRO website is updated with C-19 data, but the Peterborough one has not done so. Has anyone else suffered something similar when applying to their local registry office?

[KGarrad]

It doesn't cost anything to register with the GRO
And you get get birth & death certificates cheaper via PDF.

[Rosinish]

There's also the probability of a cert. from any office other than GRO will be a typed version i.e. not a copy of the actual cert?

Annie

[arthurk]

There's also the probability of a cert. from any office other than GRO will be a typed version i.e. not a copy of the actual cert?

Other way round - the GRO certificates are based on the quarterly returns submitted by local offices (collected by them from local churches etc as applicable), so although they might show some contemporary writing, it will be a copy/interpretation rather than the original register itelf. Original registers are kept by the local offices, who may or may not supply photocopy-type reproductions on their certificates.

(Note that in a few cases old original marriage registers are still held by churches; and I believe a few register offices may have deposited their registers at local archives.)

[Copper1]

Thanks for those responses. Perhaps the oddity in not being able to provide a copy by post and not updating their website with such specific information was compounded with it being a most recent, 2019 death?
However, I did think that being a council service, even in C-19 era, council's would all have taken steps to keep their website facilities accurate, in keeping with GRO practice.

[AntonyMMM]

Thanks for those responses. Perhaps the oddity in not being able to provide a copy by post and not updating their website with such specific information was compounded with it being a most recent, 2019 death?
However, I did think that being a council service, even in C-19 era, council's would all have taken steps to keep their website facilities accurate, in keeping with GRO practice.

You are being fobbed off - a 2019 death doesn't require access to an archived register (even if that was a valid excuse) to issue a certificate. The information is on a computer system.

[Copper1]

Very interesting Anthony. Yes, i deduce if it was found in the Indexes online - to complete an order via the GRO website, the local office could have done so; If bothered?
I just wonder of GRO receive an enquiry to explain Peterborough's reasoning, they will all close-ranks. Worth a try as I raised the issue to avoid others being similarly inconvenienced, as I have.

[KGarrad]

It doesn't necessarily follow that a local Register  District Office will have data on computer?

I know my own local office, for example refers to the Registrar's books of certificates!
I used to be able to look at these, but public access has been stopped for a year or 2.

[AntonyMMM]

It doesn't necessarily follow that a local Register  District Office will have data on computer?

All recent registrations are done on a computer system called RON, introduced in 2008/9, and there was a different computer system before that. Although a paper register entry is produced from RON and signed by the informant and registrar (at the moment - that may change soon) and becomes the primary record, producing a certificate from such an entry is just a matter of looking it up on the system and pressing the "Print Certificate" button basically.