One step closer to online BMD certs

[Mary from Italy]

The Society of Genealogists is delighted to announce that the Government has accepted an amendment to the Deregulation Bill currently going before the House of Lords that allows for the publication of information from Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates in England and Wales to be issued otherwise than in the form of a certified copy.

http://www.sog.org.uk/news/article/gro-information-on-births-marriages-and-death-doesnt-have-to-on-expensive-c

[Phoenix]

My fingers, toes and everything else are crossed on this one!

[Fi aka Wheelie Spice]

Mine too :)

[marquette]

Sounds promising - as long as they don't follow the route of NSW BDMs - six months and there are still long delays in getting a certificate and the cost is extortionate - six weeks for an email and no immediate downloads. Victorian is much much better with lower costs and immediate download of an image.

[Nell]

I won't hold my breath. I remember the debacle about Magpie.

[Phoenix]

And DOVE and EAGLE.

It has been a very long road. Wonderful if they get this right, finally, but I cannot imagine it will be any time soon.

[Olde Crone]

No, I'm not holding my breath either, wonderful though this idea is.

I understood from the abandoned DOVE project that the technology was not up to it. Has that changed now and who will pay for these millions of records to go online?

OC

[Phoenix]

I imagine (sorry, haven't waded through the text) that:



It's records before (say) 1915
The records are already digitised



This would seem ripe for Ancestry or FMP to snap up. What probably will go by the wayside is the improved, from scratch, indexing. But you never know.

[Merry]

I imagine (sorry, haven't waded through the text) that:


It's records before (say) 1915
The records are already digitised


I Agree - I'm pretty sure the images for some time frames (earlier ones) are already digitized, as I remember a thread where we discussed the carousels the GRO had installed for storage of the films and the fact that in the book, 'A Comedy of Errors' it was mentioned that the staff struggled with the 'new' storage system as it slowed them down. At the time we were writing about it the use of the carousels was no more as the films had been digitized. I have tried to find the thread without any luck, but it was quite a time ago, so may not have been on this site!

[Olde Crone]

Well, half a loaf is always better than none and I for one would be very happy with certs before 1915 (say). However, my certificate collection is virtually complete now but quite a few of those were bought when certs were only £3 anyway.

OC

[Mary from Italy]

It'd be nice to have an online index like the Australian ones, which give you the parents' Christian names for free in the birth and death indexes. That means you can eliminate a lot of possibilities and often make really good progress without needing a cert at all.