I would argue that if you run a DNA Project alongside a documentary project, this can be a very useful resource. It enables you to find out if people you can trace up to 2005/6 are still living or have deceased. Or if children have married, and thus the names of their spouses or children. It is a consequence of any DNA project that you are trying to recruit living people, and sometimes you need to target people and essentially try to cold-call recruit them in order to solve particular problems. I think it is impractical these days to run this as a look-up service, and some attempt should be made again to make this information more widely available. It is essentially in the public domain, but not accessible in any meaningful format. I am sure this has been tried before, but sometimes you need to go back and try again - management always changes and moves on. Brian -----Original Message----- From: GOONS [mailto:goons-bounces+bps=norvic8.force9.co.uk@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Marie Byatt Sent: 16 May 2017 20:16 To: Stephen Daglish; goons@rootsweb.com; goons@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [G] GRO Post-2005 BMD Transcription Project Like Colin, I don't see this group as a priority. Anyone born after 2005 is still a minor and marriages are most likely young families getting started. If relatives offer me the information to include for their family, I do so but I don't actively search it out. Same with publicly posted info - if it is already on the internet, it's out there and I'll use it - but otherwise I don't go hunting for much after about 1960-70ish. I've got plenty of dead people before that to find first. Marie (GOONS 5318) Bringing the world together one surname at a time. 'A Pepler Name' http://pepler.tribalpages.com 'Hedgerow - the Ancestors' http://cranberry.tribalpages.com Pepler DNA Study http://www.familytreedna.com/public/pepler-ow/ 'Scroops, Scropes and Scroopes' http://dentonlk.tribalpages.com 'Peplers and Peplows' pepler.one-name.net ________________________________ From: Stephen Daglish <stephendaglish@btinternet.com> To: "goons@rootsweb.com" <goons@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2017 11:56 AM Subject: [G] GRO Post-2005 BMD Transcription Project I would appreciate any thoughts on this please. For some time, the Guild has had a project to look up post-2005 Birth Marriage and Death indexes in England and Wales. These indexes are not available online and can only be viewed on microfiche at a small number of locations in the UK: Birmingham Central Library Bridgend Reference and Information Library The British Library City of Westminster Archives Centre Greater Manchester County Record Office Plymouth Central Library For those who live outside the UK, or who are in the UK but not near one of the places where the records are available, it is difficult to access these records. The project was set up to enable entries to be searched and transcribed on behalf of members. The project has a co-ordinator who receives requests for look-ups for registered study names and passes these to a band of volunteers able to visit one of the places and extract the data. However, in practice we do not have these volunteers and the co-ordinator role is vacant - so we have no way to respond to any requests received. We think that this is still a potentially useful service for members, since these are key records for one-namers who have interests in England and Wales, and members who do not live near to the record offices are disadvantaged in terms of accessing these records. But without volunteers, the current process will not work. One suggestion is to try to see if this might work as a look up offer, rather than an ongoing project. If we could find members who are planning visits to one of the record offices and who might have some spare time, then they might make an offer to do some limited look ups. However, it is difficult to estimate the level of work that might be required to fulfil a request. For smaller names this might be manageable but for larger names this can become a significant task - which gets larger as additional years are added. In practice, few requests are currently being received. This may be because members are not aware the service is offered or perhaps there is little interest in these records. Should we seek to continue to offer this service and to look for volunteers who can help? Are there any alternative approaches that we might look at? Any thoughts welcome. Thank you. Stephen Daglish (4509) Volunteers Co-ordinator