GRO Digital Images - now available

[AntonyM]

I understand that GRO have finally made their (not so) "secret" instant digital download system available to the public, although still officially as a beta test system

This covers births from 1837, up to 100 years ago, and deaths from 1837 to 1887, which can now be instantly obtained at a cost of £2.50 per record.

I've been using the digital image system since the first restricted testing - I think it was almost 2 years ago that we had the first meeting with GRO. It works really well, but as noted the test data is limited as far as deaths is concerned, hopefully that may change soon.

The image you get is exactly the same as you would get on a certificate, or on a pdf (minus the headings), but the only issue that there has been during the trial so far has been with image alignment....

Essentially, when a pdf is produced there is a human operator who calls up the digital image and then makes sure it is trimmed and aligned correctly before making it available to see - with the instant download option that human operator isn't there, so during the trial period I have found that quite a few images are slanted, or misaligned enough to make some of the information on the entry unreadable or missing entirely. This has been an issue in probably 5%-10% of the entries I have accessed.

But, when it has happened I have submitted a simple image quality report ( which we were strongly encouraged to do during the initial trial) and GRO have refunded the £2.50 charge within a couple of days.

The only other real limitation, other than the years available, is that marginal notes, where there is one, are not shown and they can sometimes be very important to see..


More info here...

https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/cert ... icBeta.pdf

[Darksecretz]

Thanks AntonyM that's really helpful to know and can possibly help others eliminate their Ancestors without the expense of a regular PDF/Cert.

[Anne in Carlisle]

Wow! Thanks Antony. Looking forward to trying it out. Several times recently I have pondered about getting an image. The thing that put me off was not particularly the cost but the time wait, so 'instant' will suit me well and probably get more sales for them!

Anne

[GallowayLass]

Oops! That’ll be me skint by the end of the week then.

[kylejustin]

Gosh how much money shall i save now lol

Why do they hate marriage records so much lol

And obviously people are asking for wider search terms according that info, and they still refuse to change things.

You'd think listening to customers and making it all easier would make sense. The more user friendly the system is, the more people would use it. I think they should do as FMP or freebmd, and allow you to put in the years you want.

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

I have mixed feelings about these. I can see the attraction of speed and cost but it does nothing for local reg offices. My big fear is there is nothing to encourage councils who currently provide modern handwritten transcriptions of originals to digitise their holdings. I can buy hard copies of originals for my Lincs ancestors at £11 with actual signatures with a turnaround of around 2-3 days in most cases but the instant GRO option at £2.50 has obvious appeal. I don't want to call transcribed versions 'forgeries' as such but many people think they are originals and are blissfully ignorant when they try to use them for signature comparisons.

For someone like me though who has found DNA blow their tree apart and now has a collection of birth certs with the wrong father named there might be hope for quick and dirty research trees where I have common surnames, assuming that is that they do have the truth on them and not just more blatant lies and deception.

[kylejustin]

I have mixed feelings about these. I can see the attraction of speed and cost but it does nothing for local reg offices. My big fear is there is nothing to encourage councils who currently provide modern handwritten transcriptions of originals to digitise their holdings. I can buy hard copies of originals for my Lincs ancestors at £11 with actual signatures with a turnaround of around 2-3 days in most cases but the instant GRO option at £2.50 has obvious appeal. I don't want to call transcribed versions 'forgeries' as such but many people think they are originals and are blissfully ignorant when they try to use them for signature comparisons.

For a while there the local RO's were more expensive than GRO. throw in that some RO's refuse to do certs for genealogy purposes, and many just transcribe an entry instead of sending an image of the original....makes sense most would use GRO. Having said that, marriage records aren't part of the pdf/instant downloads, so if you want signatures you either find the original in an online database or pray the RO will send an original.

[AntonyM]

Local registration offices cannot refuse to supply certificates, they have a legal obligation to do so - but some do make it awkward if trying to apply online.

There is no requirement for them to supply certificates showing the original register entry, and many will refuse to do that - it takes much longer than copying the info out by hand, and some registers are too fragile to lay flat on a copier.

However if approached politely I've found most will try and help if they can - one London RO that would only supply a handwritten certificate from a marriage, did then email me an image of the signatures in the register which I needed to prove a bigamy case.

[Bertie]

I've been looking forward to this - even though I have all relevant birth/death certs. for all known direct ancestors and mostly they were at £11 each: ouch! - but I did try to get the death cert. of someone i was interested in for £2.50 but there was no instant download available, just the PDF or printed record.

Are there known gaps in the records and is there a way to flag up a non-available record?

[GallowayLass]

Are there known gaps in the records and is there a way to flag up a non-available record?

See para. 2 of Anthony’s original post for available birth and death years. There are no marriages at all as they had not been filmed by the time the plug was pulled on the original digitisation project known as DOVE.

[jenoco]

Thanks for this, Anthony. I've already downloaded a couple of deaths and I'm sure I'll find more..

[Bertie]

See para. 2 of Anthony’s original post for available birth and death years. There are no marriages at all as they had not been filmed by the time the plug was pulled on the original digitisation project known as DOVE.

To reiterate, the record is a DEATH within the relevant timeframe so qualifies for a download.

My question still is: what to do about a qualifying record that is not available by digital download?

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

To reiterate, the record is a DEATH within the relevant timeframe so qualifies for a download.

My question still is: what to do about a qualifying record that is not available by digital download?

Have you searched for the record and it show in the results? If there is a result does it just have the paper and pdf order option or state something along the lines of 'Image not currently available'?

[Bertie]

Have you searched for the record and it show in the results? If there is a result does it just have the paper and pdf order option or state something along the lines of 'Image not currently available'?

There was no instant download available, just the PDF or printed record. Against digital download: it said not currently available - no info. as to why or whether this will change!

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

It seems the image hasn't been digitised for some reason then. In Anthony's original post there is a link to the GRO publication about the new instant images, there is a section that covers the not currently available scenario.

[Bertie]

It seems the image hasn't been digitised for some reason then. In Anthony's original post there is a link to the GRO publication about the new instant images, there is a section that covers the not currently available scenario.

The article doesn't actually give any assistance regarding this scenario - so still in the dark!

[kylejustin]

It's bloody brilliant! Because of the price i took a punt on a few death certs i was really unsure of and nailed them all!

How do you report the image being cut off? Couple have the top which has the date cut off.

[Darksecretz]

It's bloody brilliant! Because of the price i took a punt on a few death certs i was really unsure of and nailed them all!

How do you report the image being cut off? Couple have the top which has the date cut off.

Maybe goto 'data quality and error reporting'? or use the contact us bit? let us know if you find it that way it'll be helpful to others should they have problems.,

[AntonyM]

From the feedback we had during the closed trials, entries within the available years but which have no "digital image" option would normally mean that there is an issue with the scan quality, or it was not scanned at all.

To report any issues with alignment or missing info, or for other feedback on the system - go to the "contact us" option and use the link to the form in the "online" paragraph.

[kylejustin]

Thanks antony, i couldn't remember how i reported an issue once before.

When you reported these issues, did they send the fixed image?