For family history researchers, as in every other field, price rises are inevitable even if unwelcome when on a tight budget. I have always recommended in my course that researchers buy the relevant birth, marriage or death certificate and continue to do so. This is because these copy documents help to make sure that researcher get access to the important information contained on them and to be as sure as we can be that we are adding the correct person into our family tree. Even with the increase in certificate prices that The General Register Office (GRO) has announced, I still stand by that advice.
To be fair, to this government department, this is the first increase in certificate costs since 2010 and so it may be said that it is only to be expected.
From the 16th February 2019 we now know that the cost of print certificates will increase from £9.25 to £11, and from £23.40 to £35 for the priority service, which provides delivery on the next working day. The same costs will also apply if family history researchers order the certificate from their local register office.
In October 2017 the GRO had introduced a pilot scheme which allowed researchers to order PDF copies of the digitised birth and death records for £6 each. This scheme was a success and after an estimated 79,600 PDF orders rolled in to the GRO in three months, they extended the scheme indefinitely.
The cost of PDF records will also see a rise this February as they now increase to £7 each, with priority deliveries available at £45.
A new charge is also being introduced for researchers who make an application to the GRO for a certificate copy without knowing the index reference. While this has not been charged for to date, there will now be an additional non-refundable fee of £3 in exchange for GRO staff carrying out a search of the index. Also the GRO will require a fee of £3.50 where they cannot fulfil an order because the staff cannot locate the record with the information provided by the researcher.
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