On Tue, 05 Jul 2005 16:44:01 +0100, John Addis-Smith wrote: >On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:02:12 +0100, Peter Christian wrote on the SoG >Mailing List:: > >>In today's Guardian >>http://politics.guardian.co.uk/egovernment/story/0,12767,1512480,00.html >> >>Probably best not to read this if you're easily outraged by government >>departments not learning their lesson. > >Some more details have since come to light: > >- Len Cook the Registrar General has released a statement on the ONS >web site at: > http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/digit0605.pdf > >- Steve Lloyd, the Communications Manager of Certificate Services at >the General Register Office has replied to an email saying that the >scans to be sent abroad will be made from the microfilm copies of the >centrally held ***certified copies*** of BMD records, not the original >records held in local registries around the country. > >So they have even saved money by scanning existing centrally held >films rather than the original registry records, thus preserving any >errors made in producing the centrally held 'certified copies'. > >Does anyone know if the SoG and the FFHS have made representations >about this? There is not much time before the contract with Siemens is >signed! > > >Cheers, John > >John Addis-Smith >Thurleigh, Bedfordshire, England To me the post in another mail list says it all:- Tom ========================================================= On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:54:37 +0100, Guy Etchells wrote in mail list UK-1901-CENSUS >It amazes me that over four years after the idea was first raised >(September 1999), three years after the White Paper and a series of >seminars in February 2002 on the subject, genealogists raise the >subject as if it is a new revelation. >It was announced, consultation has taken place and the situation >generally accepted by the genealogical community including the >Federation of Family History Societies and the Society of Genealogists >that the registers would be digitised in such a manner. It was also >blatantly obvious the likely people to the keying would be based in the >Indian sub-continent. > >There is no Births and Deaths Registration Act that forbids such >information leaving England & Wales as if there was it would be illegal >for people overseas to obtain birth certificates from England & Wales. > >Incidentally there would be no need for the computerised records to be >scanned as they would be in digital format in any case, the records that >are to be scanned are the earlier records going back to possibly 1837 >which have not yet been digitised. Having said that the proposals first >suggested the government were only interested in paying to digitised >records 70 years old and less with private funding paying for older >records. >Cheers >Guy ==========================================================