Shelley Cameron wrote: > When one finds a birth that gives you the VOl., and Page number, is > their anywhere on the internet that allows you to type the vol.&page > number in so you can see who the parent's are before you spend money on > the certificate? The simple answer is "no". Unfortunately, like all hobbies, there is an element of expense involved. The law in England & Wales, as it currently stands, prohibits birth marriage and death certificates being made available on the internet. However, there are possible ways to find out, depending on the date you are looking at. One is to see if there is a little envelope icon beside the entry in FreeBMD. If there is, click on it and there may be informtion relevant to the parents. There may also be an email address for the person who put the information online who may be connected. Another way is go to your local LDS FHC and hire the film of the parish in question and search through it for the baptismal entry. This will not give you the mother's maiden name though and may not even give you the mother's name at all if the person filling in the register had forgotten by the time they did it. (The registers weren't completed as the events occurred [with the exception of the marriages] but maybe weekly or monthly or even quarterly!) The drawback here is that you have to know the parish concerned. The place given in the GRO index is the name of the registration district which will cover a number of parishes. You could look for the child in the next census (providing the next one isn't the 1911 which is being rolled out from January). That will give you the names of the parents and also any older siblings there may be. The next step would be to look for the marriage of the father to the mother, starting from the time the oldest child was born and working back. It'd be quicker and easier to get the certificate.