Federation Of Family History Societies

Archives Liaison Report - April 2007

 

Maureen Bullows continues as the Archives Liaison Officer and she has now been joined by Roger Lewry following the completion of Jane Starkie's four-year period of service on the Executive Committee of FFHS. We thank Jane for all the work she put in during those four years.

LMA and Guildhall Library

Roger began his involvement with archives liaison by joining a consultation meeting on 29 March to learn about plans for the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) and Guildhall Library.

Digitisation of major genealogical sources held at LMA and Guildhall Library was the first topic to be discussed. The City of London, along with other local authorities, is committed to providing as many of its services electronically as is feasible. It is envisaged that very popular collections such as parish registers should be digitally scanned and indexed by an outside company and then made available on their website on a chargeable basis. This would be a new, additional service which would sit alongside existing free on site services at LMA and Guildhall Library. External companies are now being asked for expressions of interest in doing this work.

At the meeting Dr Deborah Jenkins - the Assistant Director (Heritage), explained that a pilot exercise has already been undertaken to digitise Wills at the LMA. A second project is nearing completion to digitise Surrey marriage bonds and allegations. Parish records are seen as the obvious initial source for the main project.

The intention is to digitise from film where possible but quality is not to be sacrificed, and original records will be used where necessary. Film dating from before 1995 will not be used as the quality would not be good enough.
Images will be made available as soon as possible (perhaps by the end of 2007), with indexes to follow when ready. The indexes will be as inclusive as is reasonably possible. The intention is to digitise baptisms up to 1906, marriages up to 1920, and all burials.

The digitised records will be freely available at LMA and Guildhall Library, and elsewhere over the Internet on both a subscription and pay-per-view basis. Royalties payable to LMA and Guildhall Library will be ploughed back into conserving and making available more records, thereby unlocking archives not currently available. For example, one register for the turn of the 19th century at St George in the East is so fragile that only a conservator is allowed to handle it.

Lessons learned from the 1901 census will be taken on board, and family history societies could be asked to assist in spot checking the indexes as part of the quality control. There will be a system for correcting errors reported by users.

The other topic under discussion was improvements to public areas at Guildhall Library and LMA. As digital resources become a central part of the service they are looking to provide a significantly larger number of computers at LMA to enable access to these resources for those who continue to carry out research in central London. They are also considering docking stations for people to use with their personal laptops, improved meeting facilities and better support for volunteers. Inevitably this will require physical changes to the building.

A new online catalogue will be ready by the end of the year, making it possible to order records in advance for viewing at LMA. This will require user registration.

This was an interesting meeting with an opportunity to feed in suggestions. When asked if there was any prospect of providing free access to The National Archives records when the Family Record Centre is closed, it was stated that the Census will be available. The Office for National Statistics has not been involved in any discussions so far.

There is a page on the LMA website that gives a bit more information, and which will be updated as the project is developed.

FRC User Group

Roger next joined Maureen at a meeting of the Family Record Centre (FRC) User Group on 4 April. This was a rather brief meeting but we did learn that the following day the BT 27 passenger lists on line would be extended to cover the period from 1890 to 1919, but excluding the Titanic. There is to be a special release for that.

Over 2 million certificates were ordered in the year 2006/7. As part of the DOVE project ONS have now had digitised 75% of historic births.

It was confirmed that TNA will leave FRC on 31 March, and relocation planning at Kew is well in hand. Following concerns that had been expressed previously, it was good to learn that those doing only family history research at Kew will not require a reader ticket when the changes have been implemented. This is in keeping with the aim of making Kew more 'user friendly' after the style of the FRC.