Certificates postage delay from National Records of Scotland

The following notes is displaying on the ScotlandsPeople website (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk), concerning orders for birth, marriage and death certificates from the National Records of Scotland (www.nrscotland.gov.uk):

Please note certificate ordering will be unavailable from 1pm on Friday 12th September 2025 and will resume again from 9am on Tuesday 16th September 2025 

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available - Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

GRO England and Wales increases BMD record prices

The prices for English and Welsh birth, marriage and death certificates has gone up at the General Register Office at Southport, whether certified (certificate) or uncertified (PDF or image). 

This is what they were:

And this is what they are now:

As can be seen, it's quite a jump, with certificates having increased by £1.50 to £12.50, PDFs by a pound to £8, and digital images rising by 50p to £3.

Further details via the English/Welsh GRO platform at https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/faq.asp

Chris

Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

ScotlandsPeople resumes certificate ordering service

From ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk):

Our certificate ordering service on ScotlandsPeople is now available, having been offline while we carried out essential maintenance.

 

Thank you for your patience and apologies for any inconvenience.

Chris

Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

ScotlandsPeople resumes certificate ordering service

Although the National Records of Scotland (www.nrscotland.gov.uk) and the ScotlandsPeople Centre (https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/visit-us/scotlandspeople-centre) remain closed to public access, they are now taking birth, marriage and death certificate orders online once again.

From the NRS website:

We have opened our online certificate ordering service on ScotlandsPeople and further information can be found below. Due to increased demand and restricted working arrangements our normal 15 working day target may not always be met. We will endeavour to process applications and issue certificates as soon as we can.

Ordering a Certificate

Customers can order a certificate using Certificates and Copies on our ScotlandsPeople website.

Certificate ordering will be available online Monday to Friday between 9 am and 4.30 pm.

We have removed our priority ordering channel and we will do our best to complete orders as soon as we can however this may not be within our usual timescales.

We can only process online orders and will not be able to process those received by any other contact channel.

For further details, including information on priority orders, visit https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/about-us/service-status.

Historic births, marriage and death records are available on the ScotlandsPeople website (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk), with images for births available if over 100 years old, marriages over 75 years old and deaths over 50. For more recent records you will need to use the certificate ordering service, until such times as the ScotlandsPeople centres re-open, where £15 for a day pass will secure unlimited access to the records to (almost) the present day.

(With thnaks to @mishjholman via Twitter)

Chris

My next 5 week Scottish Research Online course starts August 31st - see https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=102. My book Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 is now out, also available are Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.