Thanks for that push, KiteRunner. I decided to go through all my mother's effects again and found... her birth certificate! I seem to have some kind of original, which is partially readable, and a certified copy in good shape.
So I have moved on to her parents and am not sure what I did was right. I'm humbly hoping you or some other patient soul will help straighten me out.
I had worked through yorkshirebmd.info and found a listing I believe to be my mother's mother, Elizabeth Spence, in Kirkstall. (She was from nearby Headingley. There is another Elizabeth Spence born in Leeds North in 1875, but that seems less likely to me.) I pressed the button and printed out a form to submit by post to Superintendent Registrar, Leeds Register Office, Leeds Town Hall, The Headrow, Leeds, LS1 3AD. Then I remembered that I had come across a GRO website where the certificate could be ordered online, and I went and filled out an order online instead (
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/).
My big question is, in taking the reference number from the form created by yorkshirebmd and placing it in my order to the GRO, did I make a mistake? I entered Kirkstall vol. 51 page 455. I'm afraid I may be mixing up the reference numbers between the local registry office and the GRO.
This leaves aside my mother's father, which is what I had set out to pursue. And here I have the flip side of the question on the reference numbers. I could not find him on yorkshirebmd but I do find him on freebmd.org.uk, and that gives me Walter Berry's birth registered in Keighley district, vol. 9a, page 197, which I confirmed by looking directly at the scan. Now, is that a reference that I could/should have entered online to request his birth cert?
The same site gives me "Leeds 9b 562" for my mother's mother, instead of Kirkstall 51 455. Perhaps that is what I should have entered in my online request. (I should have asked questions first, before I pressed "send", eh?)
Sorry to sound so confused. I am!!!
Eternally grateful for any and all help,
Janet