Even God Needs a Good Index

The GRO's digitized index of UK vital records is still a couple of years away, the microfilmed records are scarcely usable, and the paper originals have just been removed from public view.

There will never again be public access to the paper records, the index to where in the country all the births, marriages and deaths were registered, but - as so often with government IT projects - the timetable for the online version intended to replace them has collapsed. According to a spokesman for the Office for National Statistics, which is responsible for the General Records Office, "the present target is to have the online index available by mid-2009".

In the meantime, researchers are invited to use microfiche, which means, one furious researcher said, that "not even God himself is going to be able to find most of this stuff". [Link]

If God is impatient, He can try these resources:

• England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index: 1837-1983 (Ancestry.com, free partial index)
• England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index: 1837-1983 (Ancestry.com, free partial index)
• England & Wales, FreeBMD Death Index: 1837-1983 (Ancestry.com, free partial index)
• England & Wales, Birth Index: 1984-2005 (Ancestry.com)
• England & Wales, Marriage Index: 1984-2005 (Ancestry.com)
• England & Wales, Death Index: 1984-2005 (Ancestry.com)
• England & Wales, Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes, 1837-2005 (Ancestry.co.uk)
• England & Wales, Births, Marriages and Deaths: 1837 - 2005 (findmypast.com)
• Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates - Complete BMD Index 1837-2005 (The Genealogist)
• Official GRO Birth, Death, Marriage Indexes 1837-2005 (familyrelatives.com)

It's Their Third Bird

You have to admire the British government's commitment to both genealogy and ornithology. Their DoVE (Digitisation of Vital Events) project is progressing nicely, with 40 million of 70 million historical UK birth records now included in the EAGLE (Electronic Access to GRO Legacy Events) database.

Yet another bird's name has been chosen as the acronym for the third project - MAGPIE (Multi Access to GRO Published Index of Events). This will provide online indexes to the newly digitised records, and will be accessible via the internet, hopefully by April 2008. [Link, via Featherstone Genealogy]

Their fourth project will undoubtedly be dubbed "PELICAN" (Project to Encourage Licentious Implementation of Cute Avian Names).

The Bard Burns at Last

On Wednesday, the birth and marriage certificates of poet Robert Burns became the last available General Register Office for Scotland records to be digitized and placed online at ScotlandsPeople.

George Lyon, Deputy Public Services Minister, said the online publication of Burns's documents spearheaded a project which allowed people worldwide to capitalise on the growing interest in genealogical research and trace their Scots ancestry.

Mr Lyon said: "Scotland's old parochial records go back more than 450 years and include our national bard's birth and marriage certificates. These are the last set of registration documents to go online, marking the end of a £3m project to improve access to Scotland's records for genealogists worldwide." [Link]

British Vital Records Outsourced

From the (Manchester, England) Guardian Unlimited:

Population database will move to India

Protests at offshore move for lists of births, marriages and deaths

David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Thursday June 23, 2005
The Guardian

A database containing details of every birth, marriage and death in England and Wales since 1837 - all 250m of them - is to be transferred to India in one of the biggest offshore contracting deals ever to be signed by the government.

The controversial deal - due to be signed in a fortnight - is going ahead despite criticism from MPs, peers and trade unions that to transfer the information could be illegal, could put people's personal data at risk and could lead to inaccuracies in historical registers.

[snip]

The MPs also questioned whether the move was lawful without a new act of parliament because the Births and Deaths Registration Act forbids the information leaving England and Wales. Evidence was also given to them suggesting that an Indian workforce may have difficulty spelling complex Welsh and English names.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

How hard could it be for them to spell English names? Could it be any harder than spelling Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam?