General Chat

Proposed closure of London GRO Another contact has written about the above as follows: This matter is likely to be of interest to all list subscribers live in or visit London and use these facilities: The Society of Genealogists is extremely concerned that ONS is to close its services at the Family Record Centre early without putting into place the improved digitised indexes or any satisfactory service to replace what is currently available. ONS announced at a meeting of the Family Record Centre Users Group on 25 July 2007 that the anticipated closure of its Public Search Room facilities at Myddleton Street, which was due to occur by the end of March 2008, will now actually occur some 5 months earlier. Due to the rationalisation of its services and the relocation of ONS staff from Drummond Gate, the ground floor GRO Public Search Room at the FRC will close at the beginning of November 2007. No certificate ordering or collection service will be put in its place and the paper indexes will be withdrawn. ONS maintains that the statutory provision for the GRO to maintain a public accessible index to births, marriages and deaths will be satisfied by the existing online images and indexes provided by commercial companies and the provision of microfiche copies of the indexes which can be found in some libraries, and for a short while, an unspecified number of sets of the microfiche indexes will be made available upstairs in the National Archives section of the FRC. The SoG does not believe these provisions satisfy the statutory requirements. Of even more worry is the fact that the GRO's Digitisation of Vital Events (DOVE) project is at least twelve months behind schedule and because of budgetary constraints and overspend on this and other IT projects the GRO is unlikely to find funding in the near future to create the improved online index search facility known as MAGPIE. The closure of the FRC was intended to go hand in hand with improved online indexes to birth, marriages and death records but this is no longer to be the case. The Society of Genealogists has repeatedly said that the closure of the GRO's London search room at the FRC is a regrettable withdrawal of services for the genealogical community. The possibility of new improved indexes which would make online searching easier and improve back office efficiency in Southport would seem to have been only a carrot dangled before the genealogical community. It is wholly unsatisfactory that GRO should close its services and make access to the existing indexes more restricted by withdrawing the paper indexes to Christchurch, Hampshire without providing some means of improved index access for those who will be reliant on the only means of obtaining birth, marriages and death certificates - namely online or postal ordering. ONS has announced a briefing paper explaining the background to its decision which can be read on the SoG's website. Society of Genealogists 14 Charterhouse Buildings Goswell Road London EC1M 7BA --- A petition on the Downing Street web-site has been created. You can access it at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/FRC-closure/. Members (and others) might like to e-sign it.