Genealogy Chat

Hi,

Some of you may have heard about this, but there is a petition on the government website to make the BMD registers between 1837 - 1908 public. Here is the link:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/OpenBMDrecords/?showall=1

It closes on 22nd July and already has 5,210 signatures!

Thanks

Vicky X

just signed it

Me too

With your retrospective permission.....

I am pinching a copy of this to put on our TKU thread. Some of the nutters there may like to make their x on the page.

It's OK they have almost learned to write their names!!

Me too. Cant be too soon

nudge, nudge, stay on top!!

So, I've taken a liking to this little thread.

That will of course be it's ultimate downfall. However, in the meantime, so long as lots and lots of passersby post on here we should be fine!!

signed

signed.
Leni

Nudge for me for later.

Sorry fi this sounds daft, but do you mean available to the public in libraries etc... as I can view the BMD indexes for that period at my local library.

Please would someone tell em abit more about this please?

All done.......

just signed

Hello
I just began the 5252 person to sign

Sorry to put a damper on things, but it has been tried before and been rejected.




The government's own project collapsed last year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/16/genealogy.records

An attempt to scan, index and digitise 250m records of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales from 1837 to the present day was supposed to result in a new public website that would let people trace their ancestors at the touch of a button next February. Now, three years after the government awarded the £16m contract to German computer giant Siemens, the deal has been terminated with only half the work done.

It was hoped that the online record would slash costs and speed up the process of tracing ancestry. The collapse means family tree enthusiasts must continue asking for copies of documents by post, which can take seven days and costs £7 or £10 a time.

The failure drew strong criticism from genealogists who were already dismayed that last October the government removed access to paper ledgers that contained indexes of births marriages and deaths at the family records centre in London when it decided to launch the website.

The General Register Office (GRO), which is responsible for the records, said only 130m had been scanned, and plans to make the index public had been shelved. Missing are details of birth records from 1837 to 1934 and death records from 1837 to 1957. The Identity and Passport Service (IPS), which runs the GRO, said it had only paid half the fee as a result.

Yesterday, the IPS were unable to say when the project would be completed and how it would pay for the rest of it.

Signed

Hi,

Thanks to everyone for bumping up this thread.

This is the statement off the petition site:

"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"

I totally agree with the above.......at the moment we do have access, but we have to pay £7 a certificate which is far too expensive if you think about what you are getting for it. Not to mention the amount of wrong certs I'm sure everyone must have! (I think I've got about 10 so far in 2 and a half years!)

Thanks

Vicky X

I understand now, we will all be signing it, do you think we will get anywhere? If I wanted to buy every certificate it would atually probably cost about £470 odd! We have loads of direct relatives.

I know petition's like this have failed before.........but in the 2 and a half years I've been researching, there seems to have been a large increase of people of all ages getting into geneology.

I was 22 when I started and people thought I was soooo boring! Now a number of my friends have got into it. The government has to give us an easier (and cheaper) way to access records that we should have access to anyway!

Sorry.........rant over!

Vicky X

signed!