GRO online ordering!

pinkypinky

I couldn't get the fax line to work today in the GRO in Roscommon so I went to the website and discovered that they now have an online ordering facility!

https://www.gov.ie/en/service/124a70-apply-for-certificates/

You fill out a downloadable form and email it to GROonlinepayments@welfare.ie and then they email a link within 3-5 working days to make payment online.

I'm going to test it out now. Has anyone used this yet?

SophieLockhart

1919 and 1969 Bs & Ds available also

pinkypinky

They went up at the beginning of January - also the early marriages from 1845-1864.

riverina

That's been operational for a while now - a couple of years at least I think? Like you I stumbled across it one day, and wondered then if it was new. It works very well, copies of the registrations back with in a few days and easily shared with others.

pinkypinky

So typical of them to never mention a change...
I have a fax machine, so have been using the older system when necessary without any issue.

One flaw I see with it from a genealogist POV is the inability to order more than one copy at a time. For that reason, I may well keep on the old system.

srmf5

I ordered all the births records for a couple before through the email service in one email. I think that I might have just attached three different forms for the three children.

pinkypinky

Right, but still have to fill out 3 forms (albeit I can save a copy with my main details which won't change). The old pdf had space to order multiple together.

They still haven't sent me the secure link yet...

pinkypinky

Just an update. Today they sent me the link 6 working days later but had a note saying they'd had a surge in applications recently.
I've actually forgotten what I ordered...

Lime Tree Farm

Back in 2008/2009 I ordered online records, for my grand uncle, from Johannesburg Archives SA online and received his death cert, copy of his will and probate the following morning by email.

When I ordered certs online from GRO last year, I thought I would have the same experience. When I didn't receive an acknowledgement, or indication that my order had gone through, I re ordered the same certs and created total confusion.

pinkypinky

Still no pdf...

SophieLockhart

I got a note saying to expect a delay of up to 15 working days.

pinkypinky

Yes, my link to payment said that too. Unclear whether that's from the day I sent it in or the day they receive payment. If the latter, it's more like a 3 week turnaround.

SophieLockhart

pretty sure it's the latter....

pinkypinky

Still nothing...card charged 8 days ago.

pinkypinky

Chased them on the phone earlier and they said Monday but it's just arrived and oh joy I've killed off a direct ancestor!

Hermy

Does anyone know if the online ordering service is available during this time of general shut down?

pinkypinky

No idea, but I did hear PRONI has shutdown for the time being.

I'm waiting on something from the UK GRO and it should have been dispatched before the shutdown, so hopefully it was. They are usually very slow because they send stuff "second class post" as standard and charge an outrageous premium for quicker dispatch. Weirdly, their pdf scheme doesn't cover marriages, which is what I'm waiting for.

KildareFan

I've ordered a few wills via the UK wills service. I've found some very useful information in the wills - even when there are only letters of administration.

You pay £1.50stg for each will which is fairly good value considering the charges for other records. But what a clonky system - the search function is slow & it takes up to a week for an email to arrive telling you the PDF is now accessible. You log on to the site to retrieve the PDF & it turns out that you've 31 days to download the document before it vanishes into the ether.

Whoever designed this Byzantine system must be following what Wikipedia tells me is the Rube Goldberg system "A Rube Goldberg machine, named after American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is a machine intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and overly complicated way."

Irish genealogy researchers are incredibly fortunate. We can download so many records, so quickly, at any time, for free from so many archives. Hope no one in government gets any bright ideas!

pinkypinky

KildareFan wrote: »

Hope no one in government gets any bright ideas!

They're not known for it.