General Chat

Hi all. I got a reply from Fred this morning, here goes:- We are sad to learn of your objection, and will remove your stepmothers details from our site. May we suggest then also that you petition the uk government, to stop publishing your stepmothers death on the official public register which is, of course, freely avaliabe to all & sundry, at any major public library? Regards Fred Truter. ________________________________________________ I replied & said (amongst other things) That I did not have a problem with my stepmums death being availiable in librarys, as most people searching are using the information for their own personal use, not, I may add, to copy all the information they can, to make public on their website ! ---------------------------------------------------------- Dont get me wrong, I too think the site may be usefull, but putting in recent deaths is not only upsetting people, but the information is not always correct. --------------------------------------------------------- Maybe it would be more sensitive to put in deaths prior to say, 1960 or 70 ? The rest could be found by the individial on 1837 online. I have asked Fred to post a comment on genesconnected boards, Will he or wont he ? Elaine (sorry for talking too much !)

Hi all My goodness, what a can of worms I opened with my original post! Thanks Jane for giving us the gist of Fred's e-mail to you. I agree with you, it was the shock of seeing my Mum's details in 'glorious technicolour' that spooked me. When we look for long-dead relatives on Free BMD , I.G.I. or Ancestry it doesn't usually have the same impact as finding, say, your parents or grandparents details. Now I've had time to think about it, I agree it will be a useful site for us all when it's up and running properly. Thanks for all your feedback, Sue

Could be useful,I agree we will have to wait and see. Sue from Perth WA

Hi everyone, Just had a message back from Fred. Its much too long to post on here but here is the gist of it. "It is'nt our policy to disclose the names of our contributers. We have asked where the data came from and the answer given was "the public library". The UK Government publishes indexes of death certificates each year. These indexes are are available at most major public libraries for free perusal by anyone. Armed with such information, anyone can order a certificate from the government ( and have to pay for a processing fee). It is against the index that we checked our contributor's uploaded data. We suspect that our contributer scanned the public index into a computer. Our new website (which you have already visited) is not ready yet to accept data input from the public. This is a major headache for us, as the programmers are now 3 months overdue. The old site was very dull and slow, but at least the public could add data! However, we have spent too much money on the new site already to abandon it now(without asking cotributors from the public users to offset this expense). As soon as the new site is ready, we will email everyone their usernames and passwords." They say that they have done spotchecks on the data against the indexes and found it to be 98% accurate. Now that i know the source of this data I feel a bit better about it being on the web like this. I think it was just the shock of seeing my mum dad's and sister's names in brilliant technicoulor like that , that has upset me the most. After all i have seen thier entries in the death indexes and i did'nt have a reaction like that. I think I will give Fred and his site a chance, you never know we could all make good use of it when it is up and runnin properly. What does everybody think? Jane

I was under the impression that the BMD data was protected under copyright by ONS and people like 1837online had paid rights to publish info online. I thought you could obtain such info for personal studies and make quotations from it, but were not allowed to publish such info without permission from ONS. Maybe if you contacted ONS someone may investigate further.

You only need permission to add a LIVING person's details. You don't need to do so with death details. This information is free on 1837online. I see no difference. Crista

Hi all, Just to add to all the others, I have just found my Grans details on this site too. It came as quite a shock but after thinking about it I dont know why. She died in 1996 and as everyone has said, the info is available. It just felt a little bit weird seeing it in black and white like that from an unknown source. I am keeping an open mind for the moment. Allie.

Lynda They go to 2002 jan

Hi Lynda if you go onto search records put in a name then a list comes up of what records are available they are on there jan

Karen, since the seventies (i think) the exact date of birth of a person can be found on the GRO Index of a death for that person. Maybe they're using that aswell as a few other things. Jane

message for Janet from East Northamptonshire I have checked my uncle on ancestry and guess what two entries on there for him as well, one in his real name one in his nickname, identical to what is on that site!! very odd eh?

Right here goes I hope I am not going to complicate things here or confuse anyone (or myself) On that site if you hover the mouse after the place of death it gives a ref number..... I have just been on ancestry and checked one of my relatives and it gives the same ref number... Jan

I have mailed them & asked them to remove my stepmums details as they have not had permission to put them on the site. And have upset the family in doing so. ( and getting it wrong) any ideas who else we can complain to ?? elaine x

I e-mailed them last night.... no reply as yet

I checked & my stepmum is on it. It has her death as 02/2001 She actually passed on the 28/01/2001. I feel angry & will try to email them. What right have they to add peoples loved ones who have passed in recent years, especially when they cannot even get the death date right ! Elaine x

Still had no reply from Fred about where this information came from, so i entered my name and email adress on there. You are supposed to get confirmation of your email with a password and username but nothing so far. Wanted to see if there was anymore on the site other than what i can see at present. I'll let you all know what happens. Jane

Carol There should be a box with letters of the alphabet down the left side and the number of persons on the right. You just click on the initial letter of the surname you are searching. Someone said in a previous message that it was designed to work with Internet Explorer 6. Is this what you have? If not, perhaps this is the reason you are having problems? Janet

Just found my Aunt on the site under her married name but the death date was a couple of days out. Luckily my old uncle has no pc and can't see it. He would be very upset as death was recent.

Spooky more than anything, my mother is on but her date of death is 6 days out registration district is correct, giving South Warks, which is what Stratford is. My Gran is not on and she died in 1992 nor my uncle in 1994 and they were registered at the same office. Ros

I haven't filled in any details as yet. At times I go straight to the page that has a list of name initials. At other times I get taken to the home page. I am also on IE 5 (having great trouble updating to IE6) but I can access the site and find my way around it. Of course there could be lots of things I don't know I am not accessing!! I know some people have said that the info is available on 1837 and it is possible this is where the info has come from, but if that is the case, why is this site starting at 1996 and not 1993? Jacky