Hi Judy, Are you referring to ALL register offices? How about the GRO? I wish I had known that all along. I had ordered two certs. the other week and got an email Friday to say that neither one was right as the specified father was the wrong name! So instead of the 14 pounds it ONLY cost me 6 to find nothing!!!!!!!!!! I have been down this road before but not too many times. I will be waiting for your reply as I would love to find this ancestor but I can't afford to just keep throwing money away. Eagerly waiting, Dorothy, Calgary, Canada

Hi Dorothy No I don't think this would work with the GRO, probably because they are working from the national indices. The local offices on the other hand have far fewer records to look at and, importantly, may have records that didnt make it to the central office. It may well be a legal requirement that they are not allowed to give away information or it may be for commercial reasons. So you cant ask, 'what is the father's name, what is the address' etc, but you can ask if the father's name is, say James, and they can tell you if you are correct. There may however be a difference between what they *can* do and what they *will* do - it maybe that answering questions like that is legal but not mandatory. So its a question of asking if they mind checking for you. There is a negative side to this, which doesn't seem to get mentioned very often, and that's the value of the unexpected. For example, you 'know' the father's name is George from census records, but on the birth cert it might be something else - people were often known by more than one name, or variants. So rather obviously, specifying details has its risks. And for marriages, you would need to know where it took place, because the records are usually done by individual church etc and it is a lot to look through. Hope this helps! Judy On 30 Oct 2006, at 15:00, Dorothy Spence wrote: > Hi Judy, > > Are you referring to ALL register offices? How about the GRO? I > wish I had > known that all along. I had ordered two certs. the other week and > got an > email Friday to say that neither one was right as the specified > father was > the wrong name! So instead of the 14 pounds it ONLY cost me 6 to find > nothing!!!!!!!!!! I have been down this road before but not too > many times. > > I will be waiting for your reply as I would love to find this > ancestor but I > can't afford to just keep throwing money away. > > Eagerly waiting, > Dorothy, Calgary, Canada > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BIRKENHEAD- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message