Genealogy Chat

nudge

Funny how the government want us all to have to carry Blunkett Cards, our cars monitored so they are at all times, fingerprints are no longer destroyed is you give them voluntarily to help an invgestigation ...... Yet they want to limit the amount of information that we have access to. How long before a police CCTV in every house! MB

nudge

Just go onto the SOG site, find the e-mail address for the govt and cut'n'paste the SOG address into an e-mail before hitting 'SEND'. Do it now!

As far as I can see the response form/questionnaire can be downloaded for free. Depends whether you want to pay £10 for a printed copy or print out 35 pages yourself. What I'm not sure about is how much of the GRO's mammoth-sized document on Civil Registration you need to have read in order to competently completely the form. I followed the advice on the SoG website and read chapter 6: Privacy and Access to Registration Records, which they believe contains information that will have most impact on genealogists. However, having read it, I don't know whether this qualifies me to be able to answer 150 or so questions on such material. What I have learned from the chapter is that records are to be treated in future as being either historical (>= 100 years) or recent (< 100 years). All records are to be computerised, and a phasing out of certificates/paper records will commence at some point. Restrictions will be put in place for all "recent" records, as has already been mentioned, and permission needs to be sought in order to view so-called sensitive data. It appears that there will be an access charge for viewing the database for recent records, although this is expected to be less than the current purchase price of a certificate. Historical records will be stored on a different database and there may be no access charge for viewing such records, though is not guaranteed, at present. The document claims that the perceived view of genealogists is that historical information in its present state is too restrictive and too costly with regards the price of certificates, travelling costs, etc... Whilst these are clearly valid points, part of me can't help feeling that a lot of fun will be removed from genealogy if this new system comes into being. Genealogy is supposed to be a challenge and like all challenges it can be frustrating and rewarding in variable quantities. If it wasn't then we wouldn't be having this discussion or plenty of other genealogical related discussions. These changes would surely also make a lot of genealogical resources redundant, namely the 1837 site, and all the hard work that's been done (and still being done) by FreeBMD volunteers is now surely all in vain. The document clearly states that indexes will be scrapped, as a computerised system obviously has advanced methods of sorting data. Those are my thoughts thus far. Andy.

This Message should be kept at the top of the page. As i think everyone should be aware what going on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi all, Surely its not just genealogy which will be affected. I would not have found my lovely mum if Marvellous Joan at myfolks had not been able to access my grandfather's death certificate and find out whereabouts they lived. Liz STS

nudge Lynne Epsom

Back to the top!!

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Paul Pearce Smith - if I had meant Northern Ireland I would have stated NORTHERN IRELAND!!! I suggest you purchase a copy of Family Tree Magazine and read the article to which I refer - there is a very interesting section on a 16 page consultation paper published by GRO for NORTHERN IRELAND. Teresa - every one is entitled to their opinion you'll agree - I personally agree entirely with your explanations regarding adoptions etc. but the fact remains, those of you in Southern Ireland do have an advantage over us in the UK albeit due to the Brits action in the past!! It is also a fact that as the UK government are responsible for registration in WALES, before any changes could be implemented an order would need to be made by the National Assembly for WALES! Jacqui

I hope that electronic storage of "historic" certificates will include an image of the certificate rather than just a transcription of it. I must admit that I have never understood why the Register Offices have never been able to allow the "historic" registers to be filmed and made generally available. I have obtained many certificates less than a 100 years old and many of these have been very valuable in opening up further enquiries. They are not always in the main male descent line. I suppose the only good thing is the British governement IT departments have a track record of never ever having a computer project that is completed on time. Martin

I wrote to my MP (Alan Beith) a couple of weeks ago. Got a letter back saying that he agreed with the 100 yr rule. My flabber was truly gasted! I suppose I need to write to a few other people too. Can the Queen help?!

You may want to check this link out. The Federation of Family History Societies examine the proposals put forward by the government and give their view on certain extracts from the document. As you can probably see, the feedback is from last year, not long after the document was released, however, it's worth reading in order to gauge further opinion on these proposals: http://www(.)ffhs(.)org(.)uk/Societies/Liaison/Feedback(.)htm

Well as we do not know the outcome of this situation just yet. Ive just ordered quite a few certificates just in case. I had put them off for a while as they were not at the top of my list of important certificates that i needed to order. Iam aware that a few other people are also doing this, so i may have to wait a bit longer for them to arrive. However this does not matter to me as long as i have them. Sarah

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Appendix I that Marly refers to, is listed as Annex I on the SoG website, just in case that was causing any confusion. Annex I is simply the questionnaire that has been compiled in response to the White Paper that has been published. To view the questionnaire, firstly go to this website: www(.)statistics(.)gov(.)uk/registration/whitepaper/response(.)asp Next, you should be able to see two options asking you whether you want to download the response form in English or Welsh. Clicking on either of the two links will open up the form as a Word document. If you'd rather save it first to your own PC, then right click with the mouse and choose 'Save Target As'. Basically there are at least 150 questions with a few supplementary ones thrown in. However, the way it's been done is that there are 5 questions per section, and the same 5 questions apply to each and every section. Some of the sections are fairly obvious in nature, e.g. Birth registration, Death registration, whilst some are more obscure. Truth be told, if you're able to complete this questionnaire then hats off to you. I read two chapters of the Government's proposals and still felt I'd be struggling to answer these questions competently. Andy.

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