Researching British Family History No Longer Possible With Paper Records

from the looking-through-the-past dept

Though geneaology is one of the most popular activities on the Internet, family historians in the UK are used to going to the Family Records Centre in London and doing research the old fashioned way, by looking through the written records of births, deaths and marriages. So, their decision to cease all access to paper records this weekend has caused quite an uproar amongst researchers. The records are still available via microfiche, but researchers claim that the microfiche is illegible for many of the records on file. The project to provide online access to all of the records is slated to complete sometime in mid-2009, but that timeline, as with most IT projects, could slip further. The question remains though, while searching through the records may be aided with its digitization -- the project will create an online index of 250 million births -- how accurate will the digitized data be? The paper records are being stored permanently in Christchurch, so the project, outsourced to India are using the same illegible microfiche currently available in place of the paper versions. Or, perhaps the researchers will find that the ease of use afforded by online technologies will actually lead to them finding data more easily, which not only make their jobs easier, but also expose many more people to the joys of researching their pasts.

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