No you haven't misunderstood at all. Remember Dove? That has been shelved because of cost, and - perhaps more importantly - responsibility for GRO was taken from ONS and passed on to the Identity and Passport Service. They decided that their in-house computer system would remain - there's a very efficient computer system in place at Hydro to produce certs for the public - but the public-use end of the computerisation program would cease - for the time being. They said because of funding issues. Labour brought in "transparency" encouraging public access to more "stuff", unfortunately funds were always going to be an issue, it was probably not costed properly in the first place. Now looking at the Treasury's books, the current government have discovered greater holes in funds practically everywhere. So no money for Dove, even if, in the long term, it would be considerably more cost-efficient. In the short term funds won't be found, or perhaps even looked for. I wanted an ID card as I don't have a driving licence or passport, but no, can't have that, too intrusive, too expensive - blah blah blah. So I and no doubt countless others have to produce a bank card and a utility bill (at the least). Why should my personal financial data be used - it's a cheek! JK On 21 October 2011 23:43, Tim Powys-Lybbe <[email protected]> wrote: > On 21 Oct at 21:39, J K gen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > As I understand it the fiche production is a requirement for the > > newest events, none of which form part of an online database. Whether > > it should be is another question. > > And this other question is one that we should address. > > I am sure that at Middleton Street we were able to access the post 1984 > indices on a computer, effectively on-line. This made for fast and > effective searches and certainly the online database for 1984 to 2005/6 > is very effective. > > The last time I registered anything, I believe it had to be done at a > computer terminal and the data was held on a database and only printed > if required. The master copy is no longer on paper. > > Assuming that registrations are still computer entered (by the > registrars), the data for recent events, 2006 to 2011, must be on some > database. It does not make any sense to then go for physical copies to > fiche. > > What maggot is in the brain of the government bean-counters that forbids > them to allow us online access to data that is already on line? Is this > not something that all the genealogical societies should get together on > and have a big campaign on? > > I know that the project to computerise and deliver all registered data > has run out of money and stalled, but there cannot be major expense > required to provide access to the recent registrations. I can believe > that many commercial outfits would be delighted to provide an on-line > system to give index information for the price of adding a few adverts. > It might even be that the FreeBMD gurus would do a better job for almost > nothing. > > Or have I sadly misunderstood something? > > -- > Tim Powys-Lybbe [email protected] > for a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message >

On 22 Oct at 0:42, J K gen <[email protected]> wrote: > No you haven't misunderstood at all. Remember Dove? That has been > shelved because of cost, and - perhaps more importantly - > responsibility for GRO was taken from ONS and passed on to the > Identity and Passport Service. > > They decided that their in-house computer system would remain - > there's a very efficient computer system in place at Hydro to produce > certs for the public - but the public-use end of the computerisation > program would cease - for the time being. They said because of funding > issues. > > Labour brought in "transparency" encouraging public access to more > "stuff", unfortunately funds were always going to be an issue, it was > probably not costed properly in the first place. Now looking at the > Treasury's books, the current government have discovered greater holes > in funds practically everywhere. > > So no money for Dove, even if, in the long term, it would be > considerably more cost-efficient. In the short term funds won't be > found, or perhaps even looked for. Bit I am not asking for Dove. I am only asking that the data for birth, marriage and deaths after 2005, which seems definitely to be already on computer databases, should be released now in electronic form. There is virtually no need for any extract program to be written and in any case the commercial operators might well pay the modest fee for whatever programming cost that there was. All that we need is that the data that currently goes into microfiche production is also released for database production for the commercial operators. Low functionality, low cost and a massive benefit to everyone whose only access to the indexes is through the ridiculously primitive and expensive-to-get-to technology of microfiche. Ban The Microfiche! -- Tim Powys-Lybbe [email protected] for a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/

Tim, > >>Ban The Microfiche!<< We do have to remember that there are people who do not have, or even want, a computer! However, the basis of your proposal for a commercial online database makes perfect sense. Maybe you should prepare a formal proposal and ask the Society to put it before the appropriate User Group/Panel/Liaison Committee on which it is represented. Jeanne Bunting nee Attersley