GRO digital trial reaches final phase
The third and final phase of a pilot project to supply copies of English and Welsh civil registration records via email is being conducted by the General Register Office (GRO).
For the first time, researchers have been able to purchase PDF versions of records not already held by the GRO in a digital format at a cost of £8 each, instead of having to pay £9.25 to order hard copy certificates.
This includes births from 19352006, marriages from 1837-2010 and deaths from 1958-2006.
Two previous stages of the trial, conducted between November 2016 and February 2017, enabled family historians to request PDF copies of birth (1837-1934) and death records (1837-1957) that had already been digitised by the GRO.
These were available at a cost of £6 (supplied within five working days) and £45 (supplied within three hours).
At the time of going to press, phase three was set to continue until Wednesday 12 April, or until 40,000 PDFs had been ordered – whichever came first.
According to a GRO statement, the government agency would be analysing results from the trial, but it was “not possible to give a timescale” on the launch of a permanent digital system.
For the latest updates on the project, visit gro.gov.uk.