General Chat

I didn't sign it because I don't think I'd be happy with free access to personal records. I prefer that modern records can only be bought with knowledge of the exact date and so on. I don't think certificates are very expensive - what I would like to see is online access to them in the way that Scotlandspeople works.

we should claim this information back
under the right to inherit laws
it belongs to our ancestors not the government's
even if its in there care

I agree Joy (hence signing the petition)
but I am not quite sure what the answer says such a long winded way of saying maybe in the future !

Same response as the two previous recent petitions.

The DOVE project should never have been disbanded by the government.

this is our heritage
we should be allowed free access
nobody should have the right to withhold this information from us

to the petition for access to BMD

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to allow full and open access to registers of Birth, Marriage and Death from 1837 to 1908.”


“Having full and open access to the registers of births, marriages and deaths from 1837 to 1908 will make it easier for genealogists to research the records and ensure they get the copies they require. If copies were put on the internet this would simplify the process. These records are over a hundred years old and should now be accessible to all with a small fee to cover the cost of copying the originals.”

The response ......

Thank you for your e-petition which calls on the Government to provide full and open access to the registers of birth, marriage and death between 1837 and 1908.

The Government understands that many family researchers want to have full and open access to the information in historic birth, death and marriage registers and accepts that the current legislation is overly restrictive with these records.

Under current legislation - the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 and the Marriage Act 1949 - access to the information in birth, death and marriage registers is only possible by means of a certified copy (certificate) of a particular entry, when that entry has been identified from the index and the statutory fee paid. There are other pieces of legislation which allow for the release of information in birth, death and marriage registers for specific purposes, e.g. statistical data, but there is no power to provide full and open public access.

The Government proposed in 2003 a wide-ranging set of reforms to the civil registration service in England and Wales. These proposals included an intention to digitise all the records with historic records being accessible to view on a database, possibly with a small charge, but without the need to purchase a certificate. It did not prove possible to introduce the necessary legislation by a Regulatory Reform Order as we had intended and there has not been a suitable opportunity to legislate since then. Nevertheless, we remain committed to modernising the way in which these records can be accessed and the Registrar General keeps this under active review.