I noticed the thread and realise this may be straying into the dangerous territory. My Parents both are "Scottish", I live in "Scotland", I was born in Oxford England so in England I am English, in Scotland I am English, (because I have an English accent) I always used to feel Scottish till I moved here, but now realise I am an Ulster Scot born in England, with an English Great Grand father who hid in Scotland as he deserted the Royal Navy in Montevideo. Not much going for me..... So I suppose that allows me to say what I think <grin>. When you cut out all the political rubbish about nationality (whatever that is all about), one of the few things going for "Scotland" (apart from it being a very nice place mostly) is its system of registration and access to records and certificates. Whilst "Scotland People" is some positive progress, a visit to new Register House and access to everything is exactly how it should be. Everyone could learn a lesson from this system, with the added bonus of the parents date and place of marriage on birth certificates. What a boon this is when tracing ancestors from Ireland who moved to Scotland when there are no equivalent Irish records. How sad the English system is, even worse the Irish (except for access to the 1911 census, but at least they are starting to do something about it.) If you go to New Register House there is NO cut off date, only on Scotland People, and at C£18 a day it is priceless, I could live in it permanently, but I need to work too..... Just how it should be. Scotland does not get many things right, as they are run by Politicians. Unfortunately some elements fought against the poll tax which led subsequently to some political turmoil at Westminster, no one yet has come up with anything better <grin> However, the smoking ban started here, what a transformation and are about to get rid of bridge tolls. So Scotland does have something to offer, shame about the Nationalist bit. So on the Family History front Scotland has a lot going for it, others (perhaps excluding the USA) have a lot to learn from here and a visit to New Register House is recommended to anyone with any ancestor who has lived or born married or died above the line of Hadrian's Wall. As we are all "British" anyway about time the 4 parts tried to come in line with the best parts of each system, not the worst, before Brussels puts a stop to it. I do not like paying for anything unnecessarily, and am not a fan of "pay per view". I do not mind paying for value added. So paying to visit New Register Rouse I happily accept, searching Scotland People becomes too expensive for what I want to do. Similarly "Find My Past" and "Ancestry" become too expensive as I really need both and cannot afford everything. As my Hobby is Family History, not just genealogy, I cannot get past the genealogy part, or family tree bit, which should be easy and next to free. If I could, I would happily spend a fortune on archives like wills and ancient records to take me really forward in my quest. I have been to Colindale library once and could spend years there, trouble is it is too far away and inaccessible. Most of the Country is disenfranchised of its use. Colindale is one of those places holding really valuable history. Most other locations would also be just as useless so Digitisation must be the way forward here, in the manner of "The London Gazette" I hope, but fear not. Our hobby has become a bit of a "cash cow", and we will only get what we want if someone is going to make a lot of money out of us, otherwise we are just a bunch of eccentric nuisances and we will get given bits of info, some sort of compromise suiting no one. The question was asked "Are they more efficient and speedier in Scotland or merely dealing with far less data?" The answer is both, but primarily the system is far more organised in Scotland. The volume is irrelevant, the resources in England are vastly superior and the economies of scale must suggest that either someone does not want us to have it, or just badly managed over many years. The money that must have been taken from people buying English and Welsh certificates, 1901 Census etc could have been ploughed into evolving the system instead of it being yet another another "Stealth Tax". When you think about it, you or your ancestors did not charge the Government for giving the information to them, they just charge you when you want it back <I know it is not as simple as that... grin> Lindsay Young -----Original Message----- From: warwick-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:warwick-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Charani Sent: 09 September 2007 12:59 To: warwick@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [WAR] Colindale Library closure ramaix wrote: > Are they more efficient and more speedy in Scotland or merely > dealing with far less data? I think you will find that in 1901 the > total population of Scotland was less than that of Inner London > alone! You buy blocks of units and can download the certs immediately. You don't have to send away for the older ones. So it's a lot easier to spend a *lot* of money on Scotlandspeople. I downloaded 8 in one evening and it cost me a lot less than the £56 it would have cost me for the same number of English/Welsh certs. They do have a cut off date which varies depending on whether it's births, marriages or deaths you want. There's also more information on Scottish certs than there is on English and Welsh. It's a great shame that the law as it currently stands doesn't allow for English and Welsh certs to be put online. Since we've wandered a bit here and I don't want Wendy jumping on my head from a great height (I've got enough probs with my spine atm), I'm not saying any more on the subject ;)) -- Charani (UK) OPC for Walton, SOM ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to WARWICK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message