On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:58:00 +0000 (UTC), Guy Etchells <[email protected]> wrote: > >> My problems arise with details on paper. >> >> <snip> >> >> [email protected] > > >Oh how the world has filled with paranoid souls over the last 40 odd >years that I have been researching family history. >There was a time when we all shared full information freely no many >do not even acknowledge who they are. Not altogether -- think of the adoption acts that came in in the 1930s, which were hedged with secrecy. Things have become more open in recent years, largely as a result of children who were adopted in those conditions lobbying to have things changed. In the 1930s and 1940s people were sometimes never told they were adopted, and some only discovered when they had some hereditary disease that required a family medical history. >I was concerned when the UK government announced the proposal to >change the registration system in this country from a paper based >one to an online one, due to the restrictions placed on some >records. >Now I await the new system with longing, every new birth marriage >and death will be instantly online for all to access. >No longer will people fret that their birth details appear on a >website we will have returned to a situation lost for the last 20 or >so years a time of sense. > >In the UK there is nothing private about a wedding date, it is a >public ceremony if fact, if it is carried out behind locked doors >the wedding is not valid. >Birth details are not private, for years proud parents and >grandparents have taken out newspaper advertisements to advertise >the births & baptisms, everyone has a right to purchase everyone >else's birth certificates; why should we now be afraid of such >things? Agreed - in England, at least, marriages have been public affairs since 1754. -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk