The General Register Office (GRO) in England and Wales is currently running a pilot scheme where it can supply family historians with PDF versions of birth, marriage and death certificates by email.
Until 12 April 2017 it is offering to supply these new-type certificates to applicants at £8.00 each. This compares with the £9.25 normally charged for official paper certificates delivered by post. The PDF certificates can be ordered for:
  • Birth records 1935 – 2006
  • Death records 1958 – 2006 
  • Marriage records 1837 – 2010

Applications for these new PDF certificates must be submitted online at the GRO website and include a GRO index reference. The latter can be obtained at a wide variety of genealogical websites such as FreeBMD, Ancestry.co.uk and Find My Past.

This pilot will end on 12 April 2017 or once 40,000 PDF certificates have been ordered, whichever comes sooner.