Current Genealogical Problems

What do other people think?

When will the General Registrar for England and Wales follow Scotland’s People example who have the birth, marriage and death indices on line to 2019, whereas the GRO finishes around 2006. They are available on microfiche in some offices but there is nothing south of London which creates great inconvenience for researchers. It seems highly unlikely that we shall see any improvement. The almost certain reason is the government’s concern over personal privacy, an easy parallel being with the national probate index where the last few decades of entries have been stripped to the absolute minimum, sometimes not even giving enough detail to identify an individual.

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Having been on a site where other researchers have done their family history, I was surprised to see that my great-grandfather was put down as having died in Marylebone in 1865 when in fact he died in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in 1856. This does illustrate the vital importance of getting birth, marriage and death certificates to ensure your assumption is correct. Never take anything for granted until it is proved twice, if not three times, from separate sources.

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In the last two months I have been to four committee meetings where people were concerned as to how Family History Societies can attract new members. What do people want and how can we encourage them to join and see the benefits? As more and more records become available online so that you can sit in comfort at home or in the library, many people now do their research on Facebook and are not always aware of the other available sources. No comprehensive family tree can ever be compiled just from indexes and selected digitised material; vast amounts of unique source material can be found in every archive or local studies centre.​

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