Michael Tringham highlights some misgivings in the recording of vital events to date
When the General Register Office (GRO) decided to digitise 171 years of vital events—the nation’s births, marriages and deaths recorded by generations of local registrars since 1837 and which probate genealogists and family historians alike depend upon—access to the paper records was to have been maintained until the new, improved indexes were available online.
That promise went the way of all flesh in March 2008, when access to the 6,550 physical ledgers kept at the Family Records Centre in north London, was ended, even though the digitisation project was already running a year late. Since then the half finished £16m project has been cancelled with birth records from 1837 to 1934 and death records from 1837 to 1957 still missing. The Identity & Passport Service, which is now responsible for the GRO, say they will “continue to work towards creation of an accessible online index”—but without publishing a timetable.
Meanwhile the GRO shows that it can move quickly enough when you pay them. To combat a fraud known as
