Newsletter
- 4th November 2016
Special Edition
General
Register Office launches new services BREAKING NEWS
Digital
copies of 'certificates' to be trialled
What
will this mean for researchers like you and me?
More
information in the next issue
This
might be the last newsletter you ever receive…..
Things
to check when you next log-in
The LostCousins newsletter is usually
published fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 29th October)
click here; to find earlier articles use the
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new edition of this newsletter available!
General Register
Office launches new indexes
Yesterday the General Register Office
launched new online indexes of births and deaths for England & Wales which
not only make ordering of certificates easier, they provide additional
information that will make it easier than ever before for family historians to
find the right entries.
Previously sworn to secrecy, I can now
reveal that I have been involved in beta-testing the new indexes since 13th October,
and when I tell you that during those 3 weeks I've ordered more
certificates than in the previous 3 years you might get some sense of how
significant this development is.
The key features of the new indexes are:
Please note that the existing indexes
will continue to be available online at the usual sites. To view the GRO indexes you'll need
to log-in at their site, and you may be required to verify your email address.
Note:
some locally-compiled indexes of births and deaths already include the extra
information, but they only cover a small part of the country.
Digital copies of
'certificates' to be trialled
From 9th November
the GRO will be trialling a new service under which uncertified PDF copies of previously
digitised entries in the birth and death indexes will be available at a reduced
price of £6 (a paper certificate costs £9.25). The years of coverage for
historic entries are as follows:
Births:
1837 to 1934
Deaths:
1837 to 1957
(It will also be possible to order
copies of birth, marriage, and death entries which were originally recorded in
digital format - I believe this system commenced in 2007.)
The trial will last for only 3 weeks, but
may close earlier (only 45,000 PDFs will be made available at this price). My
guess is that those 45,000 PDFs will be sold very, very quickly - which is why
I have rushed out this special edition newsletter!
What will this mean for
researchers like you and me?
The new indexes have already proven
immensely useful to me - indeed it was having access to them that helped me to
knock down my oldest 'brick wall' (see the article
in the last newsletter).
I've also discovered that my
great-grandfather and his second wife had twins - Alfred and Ellen - who died
as infants in 1898 and so never appeared on a census; these were their first
children together and it may have seemed to them at the time that they were
being punished for having married illegally (my great-grandfather's two wives
were sisters, and until 1907 a widower was not allowed to marry his dead wife's
sister).
For
me it has been immensely satisfying to fill in some of the gaps in my tree, and
I doubt there's anyone reading this who won't feel the same way. But each of us
will uncover different things about our ancestors and their families, and I'd
like you to tell me about the discoveries you make in the next few days, as I'd
very much like to include some of them in my next regular newsletter, which is
scheduled to be published on Wednesday evening (9th November).
More information in
the next issue
In the next issue
I'll also include hints and tips on getting the most out of the new indexes -
for example, searching for illegitimate children isn't as simple as you might
think! Also, if an infant died at the age of (say) 9 days, 9 weeks, or 9 months
the age at death may have been
recorded as 9 years.
I hope to also have some feedback from
the first researchers to receive PDF copies of register entries, and I'll be
giving details of further pilots that the GRO are planning (Statutory
Instrument 2016/980 will provide some clues - you'll find a PDF copy here).
But you might not get a copy of the next
newsletter - and the next article explains why.
This might be the
last newsletter you ever receive…..
If you've read my last two newsletters
you'll know that there have been problems sending emails to some addresses (principally,
but not exclusively, BT addresses; some other addresses managed by Yahoo have
also been affected). Until now I've sent emails about every newsletter to
everyone who has asked to receive them, irrespective of how long ago they
registered, and how recently they have logged-in to the LostCousins site.
Realistically, the longer it is since
someone logged into their LostCousins account, the more likely it is that they are
no longer reading the newsletters. Some may even be flagging them as spam (even
though I explain at the bottom of each email why they've been sent, and how to
unsubscribe); others may simply have left them in their spam folders.
As an experiment, emails about the last
issue (29th October) were only sent to members who had logged-in to their
LostCousins account since 1st January 2013; this means that half of the people
on the mailing list DIDN'T get a copy. I may use different (or graduated)
cut-off points in future, and whilst the most important emails (like the one
about this special newsletter) might still be sent to everyone on the mailing
list, I can't guarantee this will be the case.
So my advice to you is, if you want to continue reading
these newsletters, PLEASE log-in to your LostCousins account from time to time (and
yes, you do have one - you wouldn't have received an email about this
newsletter if you didn't). You don't have to do anything, simply logging-in
will confirm that you are alive and well, and still interested in family
history.
At the present time
all members are entitled to receive these newsletters, whether they have paid a
subscription or not, and there are no plans to change this. (The only
circumstance I can envisage in which it might change is if I had to pay to send
each email out.) But in return I'd like to ask you to help me, by ensuring that
your email address is up to date, by including my email address in your address
book (especially your online address book), by flagging my emails as 'not spam'
if you find them in your spam folder, especially your online spam folder, and by
moving them to your inbox when you do. Always bear in mind that simply reading
an email in your spam folder, then deleting it, confirms it as spam in the mind
of the email provider.
Note:
please don't provide an email address which forwards to another address if you
can possibly avoid this, especially if the addresses are with different
providers. It makes more work for me and greatly increases the chance that my
emails won't reach you.
Things to check
when you next log-in
When you next log-in to your LostCousins
account please take a look at your My Details page to ensure that the information
shown is correct and as complete as possible. This includes providing
alternative contact details if you haven't already done so, and entering the
email address of the person you would like to take over your account when the
time comes - as, one day, it will for all of us. Over the years extra sections
have been added, most recently one where you can indicate whether you have
taken an autosomal DNA test, or are considering doing so - this information is
made available to the cousins you're matched with - so even if you completed
the questionnaire diligently when you first registered there could still be
blank spaces!
And always check your My Cousins page to see whether there's
anyone waiting to hear from you - I do my very best to bring relatives
together, but ultimately it's up to you to make that final connection. You will
be sent an email when a cousin is trying to get in touch, but long experience has
shown that emails don't always get through....
This is where any last
minute updates and corrections will be highlighted - if you think you've
spotted an error (sadly I'm not infallible), reload the newsletter (press Ctrl-F5) then check here before writing to me, in case
someone else has beaten you to it......
That's all for now - but I'll be very
soon with my regular newsletter.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2016 Peter Calver
Please
do not copy any part of this newsletter without permission. However, you MAY
link to this newsletter or any article in it without asking for permission in
advance - though why not invite other family historians to join LostCousins
instead, as standard membership (which includes this newsletter), is FREE?