On 10 Feb 2010 at 13:02, Phil Warn wrote: > I gave up with Nat West Bank security long ago. > > To prove who I was on the phone they wanted my mother's maiden name > and my place of birth - Leeds. > > For seven pounds. the GRO would supply any one with that! > > Bank security is a farce, no other words for it. > I thought everyone - or nearly everyone - knew that the vast majority of companies, government departments, local councils and other bodies are run by bureaucratic cretins who haven't yet caught up with the Internet age. I have found a quite stunning lack of awareness amongst these institutions that the GRO birth indexes are online in several places and that, since the third quarter of 1911, the indexes supply the maiden name of the mother. Thus anyone born in virtually the last 100 years in England & Wales will have their mother's maiden name identified - you don't even have to buy the certificate in the great majority of casesm only the most recent ones that are not yet online. When the birth indexes first went online I went to my bank and asked them to change my mother's maiden name. It took me a while to explain to a puzzled girl clerk why I wanted them to do this, but eventually they did it - it did, however, take them THREE WEEKS to accomplish! My advice is NEVER give your mother's maiden name to a bank, building society or other institution. Make something up! All they want, after all, is a codeword that only you and they know. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE