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

Hi John Both the FFHS and the SoG have made strong representations, and the FFHS invited Else Churchill of the SoG to accompany Richard Ratcliffe and myself to give oral evidence in the House of Commons to the Regulatory Reform Committee last October. We also presented comparable written evidence to the equivalent House of Lords Committee. As a result, both Committees threw out the DOVE Regulatory Reform Order, and endorsed our comments that the transcriptions should not be outsourced overseas and should ideally be made from the localised records (though in the latter case we realised it would be more cost-effective and logistically practical to use the centralised microfilms). Please see http://www.ffhs.org.uk/Societies/Liaison/Commons.htm sections 108-113 in particular. However, because the RRO was thrown out, there was no legislation (and consequently no extra funding) in place to proceed with DOVE as planned. The GRO are therefore working within the current legislation and funding allocations. The unions have only just woken up to the fact that they are going ahead with the work and outsourcing it overseas, hence the Early Day Motion 394 (see http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/Default.aspx) which has so far received the support of 62 MPs. On the plus side, the GRO are liaising with the FFHS and the SoG on this project, recognising that as users we have a valuable contribution to make in helping to "get it right". We've had 3 meetings to date with the DOVE team, and were also invited to a special presentation in Birmingham by the then three short-listed suppliers and asked for our reactions to them. To be fair, Siemens were the most impressive of the three and were the only bidder who would carry out their quality control testing of the transcriptions back here in the UK rather than in India. The FFHS (and SoG) are continuing to liaise with the GRO in order to get the best possible outcome for family historians, given the circumstances. Geoff Riggs ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Addis-Smith" <genl@addisgen.com> To: <SOG-UK-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 4:44 PM Subject: Digitisation of Civil Registration Records > 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 > > ______________________________

Thank you Geoff Riggs for providing such a full reply to my query. Thanks also to the SoG Genealogy Officer Else Churchill who has also sent me similar information. I am very pleased that the SoG and the FFHS are doing what they can in the circumstances. With no extra funding I guess the ONS will go for the least cost solution, hence the use of the central copies rather that the original records held in the local registries. I would suggest that in these circumstances it would be worth checking the accuracy of the new digitisation by comparing its results with that already done by FHS volunteers with the BMD records in certain local registries such as those in Cheshire and Herefordshire. This would need to be done by computer, rather than manually, by comparing the corresponding fields in files from the two methods. Manual inspection of any discrepancies found with both the local records and their central copies would enable one to find the three independent error/omission rates - in the new transcription of the central records' fields - in the recent transcription by FHSs of the local records - in the original copying of the local records in the past to produce the central certified copies Of course there will probably be some records, both locally and centrally, where the writing is so unclear that it cannot be interpreted with any certainty. Cheers, John John Addis-Smith Thurleigh, Bedfordshire, England