The reference checking facility was dropped a couple of years ago in April 2010. It was deemed illegal for the GRO to charge for a failed search. i.e. you would pay for the cost of the certificate up front when ordering but only receive a partial refund if the search failed.  Now they have a research service which is similar to the old reference checking facility in that you can specify certain criteria, such as a father's name on a marriage certificate. However, one major difference with their new service is that you are not charged for a failed search. If they can't find a certificate which matches any criteria you specify, such as the name of the father, then you receive a full refund.  From my own experience it definitely is a no quibbles instant refund.   So an example would be:  If you want to order a marriage certificate and specify a father's name (i.e. you want the equivalent of the old reference check), then on the GRO certificate ordering page:   Tick the box – “Marriage Certificate (England & Wales)” Scroll toward the bottom of the page and type in the year of the marriage For “Is the GRO Index Reference Number known”, tick NO Click the Submit button.   The next page just asks you to confirm your own details. Click Submit.   On the next page, you can specify any of the following Man's surname Man's forenames Woman's surname at marriage Woman's forenames Date of marriage (dd/mm/yyyy)* (If you do not know the exact date enter 01/01/yyyy, we will search the specified year and one either side) Place of marriage Surname of man's father Forenames of man's father Surname of woman's father Forenames of woman's father   You have to specify either the man's surname and forename or woman's surname and forename   Hope this helps.   Megan ________________________________ From: Charani <[email protected]> To: Joy <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Sent: Friday, 3 August 2012, 9:55 Subject: Re: [Dyfed] help with info pls Joy wrote: > Therefore if you are certain about the index entry you have found order > the certificate from the GRO online.  If you have two possible entries > of the same name for an event in the same district within 12 months of > each other and cannot decide which is your ancestor  then, as the GRO > will not conduct any checks for father's name at birth or marriage, age > at death etc, That is not wholly correct. If the reference is given, no, they won't do any checks *but* if the reference is *NOT* given and the box checked to say you don't have it, you will be given the option to give reference checking points.  The GRO will then do a check and issue the certificate IF the points match   If the points do not match, a full refund is given. This change happened when the price went up last time. -- Charani (UK) OPC for Walton, Ashcott, Shapwick, Greinton and Clutton, SOM http://wsom-opc.org.uk/ ================================ Dyfed list http://home.clara.net/daibevan/DyfedML.html ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message