Death certificate queries

[Sundaynightterrors]

What does a GRO number look like? I need to give one to order my great uncles death certificate but don’t really know what I am looking for?
also how do you afford death certificates and birth certificates as the one I am trying to order is £12.50 and I could spend a small fortune ordering family very.

Go onto the FreeBMD website (ignore the ads) and put in the details for your relative in the search box. That will give you a list of matches and you choose the appropriate one. The answer will give the name of the registration district and some alpha numeric figures, for instance 6c 126. You also need to make a note of the quarter, eg March, June etc. Registrations from Jan to Mar will be in the March quarter of that year, and so on. Sometimes there's a slight crossover if the event was registered at the very end of the quarter so it might appear in the next one.

Make sure you only use the official GRO website for ordering certificates, and not any others.

Forgot to mention, you can ask for digital copies instead of paper ones, and that is cheaper.

Agree it does get expensive, particularly if you have a relative with a common name and there are a few possibilities. I am struggling to find my Grandfather’s certificate for this reason. If you do get the right certificate there can be a lot of information on it though, it’s upsetting but also helpful.

There are usually 3 price options. Cheapest is the automatic digital scan - this is a scan of the register entry, doesn't include column headings but should have all the details you need for research purposes. It hasn't been checked by a person so some are hard to read or not correctly lined up (in which case you can get a refund).

Next is a PDF version of the certificate - contains all the info you'd get on a paper cert, just not printed.

The £12.50 is for an actual paper certificate, which you don't really need.