General Chat

I ask the question because my own birth cert. of 1958 has only my name, sex, date of birth & reg. district. On the other hand, my grandfather birth cert. from 1898 has all the above plus name & surname of father, name & maiden name of mother, profession of father, residence of informant, which is much more useful! Till now I have only ordered marriage certs. as they seem to offer more info. for my money, but I will need to order some birth certs too, so is there a way to know what info. be contained on the cert? Paul

Try exploring here -


http://www.thosedixons.net/certificates/births.html

Introduction
The usage and interpretation of each entry on the Birth Certificate is explained in turn along with any historical alteration that may have happened and examples.

Birth Certificate Heading
Entry Number and GRO reference
Column 1 - Date And Place Of Birth
Column 2 - Forenames
Column 3 - Sex
Column 4 - Father's Name
Column 5 - Mother's Name
Column 6 - Father's Occupation
Column 7 - Signature, Description and Residence of the Informant
Column 8 - Date of Registration
Column 9 - Signature of Registrar
Column 10 - Name Given After Initial Registration

Paul
You have the short version that either didnt cost or was cheaper than buying the full version. I seem to remember when my sister was reg in 1949 mum got the full version costing about 5 shillings (old money) and was given the short version too FOC as dad needed it for work and they didnt want to part with the original full cert.
If a GRO ref has an s against the page nos this indicates to them that only a short version is to be issued on application ,this is usually because the child was later adopted.
My OH born in 1934 only has the short cert cos money was tight and his parents couldn't afford the full cert.

OK thanks for clearning that up, my cert. is a "a certified copy" of the original & I remember my father ordering a copy as I lost the orginal. Obviously he just got a cheap short form copy which is fine. So in most cases a copy ordered from GRO should be the full cert. unless it's marked with an "s" in the index (due to adoption for e.g) Thanks for the link Joy I'm learning! Paul

My MIL was 80 years old when she got her first full birth certificate, she only ever had the short version. She treasures her full cert.

Gail

You're welcome :-)