The programme The "Heir Hunters"have copies of the B.M.D;Records themselves on Microfilm & Microfiche. If you watch their Detective Work on that Programme ,you will notice they have the Machines themselves to do the Looking. You will also notice them looking in Drawers Full of Microfiche. The problem of "Identity Theft"was illustrated to great Effect in that Old Film...."The Day of the Jackal"with a young Edward FOX in the Title Roll. He simply visited a local Cemetary,and wrote the details of a tombstone of a young two year old who had died in 1936. He then went to the Registry Office and got the Young Boy's "Birth Certificate",and then used it as His own. This then Enabled him to Get a "Passport",which he then used Fraudently to Travel to Paris to try to Bump off President Charles De GAULLE. No doubt that Ruse has been used on many an occasion since that film was first shown in 1975. Cheers Graham. -- Graham Williams.of Canton,Cardiff. Chairman,"Canton Historical Society". Glam;FHS;#551.

On 7 Feb 2010 at 15:29, robert williams wrote: > The programme The "Heir Hunters"have copies of the B.M.D;Records > themselves on Microfilm & Microfiche. If you watch their Detective > Work on that Programme ,you will notice they have the Machines > themselves to do the Looking. You will also notice them looking in > Drawers Full of Microfiche. The problem of "Identity Theft"was > illustrated to great Effect in that Old Film...."The Day of the > Jackal"with a young Edward FOX in the Title Roll. He simply visited a > local Cemetary,and wrote the details of a tombstone of a young two > year old who had died in 1936. He then went to the Registry Office and > got the Young Boy's "Birth Certificate",and then used it as His own. > This then Enabled him to Get a "Passport",which he then used > Fraudently to Travel to Paris to try to Bump off President Charles De > GAULLE. > > No doubt that Ruse has been used on many an occasion since that film > was first shown in 1975. > > Cheers Graham. > Since some time in the 1980s (I cannot recall the exact year) every birth, marriage and death certificate issued either by the GRO or the local register offices has carried the following statement in bold capital letters: "WARNING: A CERTIFICATE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF IDENTITY". So the myth of certificates being used to steal identities is just that - a MYTH! In any event, crooks wouldn't bother to go to the trouble of getting real certificates from the GRO or a register office, they would simply forge them. That banks and government depts like the Passport Office, etc, accept birth certificates as evidence of identity is their problem and not the fault of the system of public access to them, which has been in place ever since registration began in 1837 and absolutely MUST remain so, otherwise we may as well all give up family history and take up flower arranging or some other hobby! The heir hunter firms, as Polly says, do NOT have access to the certificates, they have copies of the GRO Indexes, just as FreeBMD, Ancestry and Findmypast do - and indeed as we all do, since they are all online. I get tired of seeing this nonsense about the Day of the Jackal and identity theft regularly dragged up. Family historians should be absolutely the last people to suggest restrictions on public access to BMD certificates. -- 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