GRO Certificates

Every so often you need to confirm what you think you know and ordering a certificate from the General Register Office is a good means of doing so. It's not cheap - each certificate costs £9.25 these days but the system is easy and straightforward so it's often worth it. If you get the details right to start with!!

Today, the postman has delivered 3 certificates.
1. Death certificate for Frederick Woolley, my gg grandfather. Frederick died on 20th March 1913 at Bryn Street, Newtown (in the old county of Montgomeryshire).  His occupation is given as house plumber and painter. The cause of death is given as 'Fatty degeneration of heart' & 'cardiac failure'. The informant is son Fred living in Cross Street, Newtown.

2. Death certificate of Eliza Woolley, the widow of Frederick who died 27 June 1922, again in Bryn Street. cause of death here is 'cerebral haemorrhage'.

Perhaps it's a bit morbid to order death certificates but they could prove useful to pick up on any recurring causes of death which we today ought to know about.

3. The third certificate is a marriage certificate; Luigi James Bellisario and Emma Lowe. I ordered this to check whether it was the same branch of Bellisarios as Gabriel in Cardiff and indeed it is. It looks as though Luigi James was born around 1865, but where? The 1881 census has him living in Cardiff but born in Italy and under the name of Bellmaris rather than Bellisario (a mistranscription error) so not always easy to follow.

Anyway, things to work on thanks to today's certificates

Coming soon....

I'm expecting certificates from the GRO (General Register Office) tomorrow; one marriage certificate and two death certificates which I intend to open as I blog....these may answer queries or open new cans of worms...oh how I love family history!!