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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Essex => England => Essex Resources & Offers => Topic started by: findem on Sunday 06 July 14 02:04 BST (UK)
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The ERO's July e-bulletin is out and contains news of new accessions from Navestock, the following are extracts from the bulletin.
New Accession: Navestock parish records
Navestock parish have recently deposited some parish records (Accession A13929) including marriage registers from 1837-1997 (catalogued as D/P 148/1/14-21). The collection includes churchwardens’ expenditure accounts 1836-1928, school managers’ minutes 1867-1949, records of work carried out on the church building and records of charities in the parish 1863-1900. The registers of services 1897-2004 include the report of the high explosive bomb and parachute mine which dropped beside the church on 21 September 1940, which caused extensive damage to the church and left a crater which can still be seen today (D/P 148/1/24).
Also the E-bulletin contained a list of revised prices.
Revised prices from 21 July 2014
Please note that the prices for some of our services will be changing from Monday 21st July, including charges for Essex Ancestors subscriptions. The new prices (including VAT) will be:
1 day - £5.00
1 week - £20.00
1 month - £30.00
6 months - £60.00
1 year - £85.00
Up until 21 July you will still be able to purchase subscriptions at the current rates.
The changes also include our self-service digital photography charges, which from the 21st will be £12 for the day. We are also introducing a reduced charge of £6 from 5.15pm-8.15pm on Monday evenings.
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Hello Findem
Apart from missing the dead line for the increase, and I could kick myself, can you tell me if all records are online now, marriage, baptism and burials please
regards
Louisa Maud
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Hi Louisa Maud,
I really don't know, I've just been in to look for a list of what's deposited, digital and what's not but darned if I can find one. In the past when I've wanted to know if a PR I'm interested in has been deposited or whether it's now digital, I just go to the first page of Essex Ancestors and bring up the parish in question.
I think the easiest way for you to find the answer to your question would be to email them and ask.
Regards.
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Thank you Findem
I didn't want to pay the subscription to find what I wanted wasn't listed
Happy Hunting
LM
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Thank you Findem
I didn't want to pay the subscription to find what I wanted wasn't listed
Happy Hunting
LM
Good thinking Louisa Maud I'm sure the ERO will know who holds the records you want and then perhaps sks will help you out. :)
Regards.
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Such a shame they feel they should charge so much.
:o
Dave
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Such a shame they feel they should charge so much.
:o
Dave
Considering the images are full colour scans of the original registers rather than greyscale scans of the microfilm which most other sites have (although some more colour images are starting to appear), not really. Yes they could have got one of the subscription sites to host them, but as had been said before on RC, ERO make more money running their own site rather than "outsourcing" to another company such as ancestry or FindMyPast.
In any case, its all relative to how much it would cost any particular person to actually go to the ERO and view the registers there. I know for one, for the cost of a yearly subscription compared to a 4.5 hour car journey (each way), it's a no brainer. ;D
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While I'm glad I made such intensive use of the ERO before the price increase, I don't think the charges are excessive when you consider the quality of the scans and the huge amount of work that must have gone into producing them. I don't know of any other county producing such a comprehensive resource, so it is difficult to make comparisons.
You don't need a subscription to see which registers are available, but the individual records are not indexed.
Mike.
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A yearly subscription on top of other subs all adds up and makes it unaffordable. (The bankers had my pension) The colour of the scan is not important. You could order a colour scan if needed. Plus there is NO index which may have justified the costs.
Tis a good job eg Ancestry do not charge per county. (Ancestry is free at most libraries.)
Yes, agreed can use the excuse that it costs more for a trip there, but in this modern day n age we do not need to. Thank goodness other counties do not feel the same way. Just seems to be the trend now to make as much money as possible. Am sure if the yearly/half yearly subs were lowered they would make a lot more money!
Hopefully freereg will get in there soon.... ;D
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The colour of the scan is not important. You could order a colour scan if needed. Plus there is NO index which may have justified the costs.
It is relevant because many of the greyscale scans from microfiche are often unreadable. There are numerous examples on ancestry of registers that are difficult or impossible to read in places because they were scanned from the poor quality microfilms/microfiche. In the case of colour scans, if the original register has faded, they are far easy to read. And that applies to some of the Essex parishes because I have copies of some on microfiche. :-\
No there may not be an index, but then there aren't for most parish registers on microfiche. In any case, considering the omissions and glaring irregularities in many of ancestry's and FindMyPast's indexes, they can't be relied upon without necessarily double checking the originals anyway.
Yes, agreed can use the excuse that it costs more for a trip there, but in this modern day n age we do not need to. Thank goodness other counties do not feel the same way. Just seems to be the trend now to make as much money as possible. Am sure if the yearly/half yearly subs were lowered they would make a lot more money!
Hopefully freereg will get in there soon.... ;D
In an ideal word yes everything would be available digitally but it needs to be remembered that county Archives are public sector organisations and our council tax pays towards their upkeep and any costs they incur digitising the records. Ancestry, and to a lesser extent FindMyPast, have major gaps in quite a few of the parish register image sets and, in the case of ancestry, they are not interested in remedying the problems. At least with SEAX if you find a problem, they will normally address it.
As for freereg, even they say they are a finding aid and not to be relied on in its entirety because mistakes can be made. You can never be sure you have the correct family unless you check the transcripts against the original records, which means accessing them. There is no point trying to rely on everything that is free because you may not be following the correct families. As for using ancestry in your local library, that's fine if you can get to one and have use of a computer for sufficient time. It's not possible at all libraries and for all people.
As for dropping prices, I suspect they've not been making as much as they wanted or the prices wouldn't have necessarily gone up. Some people won't pay for anything anyway whatever the price is. There are numerous examples of lookup requests on RC from people who won't pay for the certificate even when it's a direct ancestor. It's all a matter of deciding what you spend your finite money on, everyone has different priorities when it comes to money for hobbies. ;)
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I don't expect my hobby to be subsidised out of public funds. A few weeks of intensive study on SEAX has provided me with information that might have taken years to find otherwise. It was hard work doing a page by page search digitally, but I can hardly imagine the effort involved in manually searching. Worth every penny 8)
For the record, does anyone know which other counties have a similar digital archive?
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Hi,
I do not consider the subs excessive, compared to what I'm paying to Ancestry they are cheap, haven't seen free Ancestry in Libraries over here in Oz, it's also a lot cheaper that visiting the ERO. ;D
There is another side to be considered, the subs we pay to view Essex Ancestors no doubt go towards the ERO being able to digitise more records.
I would imagine that with the government (user pays) you have in the UK now, it wouldn't surprise me that they would have cut funds to the Essex County Council and in turn the ECC would have to make savings across the board in everything they are responsible for.
Regards.
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Hi
My local library over here in the West does give us access to Ancestry, haven't used it yet as I have a sub to Ancestry taken out before I knew about it.
Definitely cheaper than going to ERO from here but not as much fun if you can do it :)
I'm making a list of what and who I'm researching and will buy a sub and hit the ERO in one fell swoop.
Good hunting to all.
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I did a month sub at the very beginning as I have a lot of Essex ancestors.I was frustrated that so many just weren't there and although some questions were answered there were many that weren't.I have FindMyPast and Ancestry at the moment and can't justify a sub to Essex.I could do a day or week one but I need to know the records are there.
Ringrose
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I too had a monthly sub at the start. I spent several weeks of intensive searching, reading literally thousands of pages, but I found dozens of relatives, many of whom I had no prior knowledge of. It certainly makes you appreciate the ease of using FindMyPast or Ancestry with their indexes and filters, even with the glaring errors and mis-transcriptions. Unless you put in the time there is little chance of finding anything . . . unless you know the dates and places already.
As the individual records on the ERO are not indexed you need to know roughly which parish your ancestors lived in, and when. Then it's a matter of finding the relevant registers (which are indexed) and browsing page after page of often barely legible records until you find them. Sometimes you find the ancestor was baptized in a neighbouring parish for no obvious reason, which means you need to check a local map if you don't know the area.
Mike.
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All very time consuming.
Ringrose