RootsChat.Com
Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Topic started by: bleckie on Wednesday 24 September 25 14:18 BST (UK)
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Hi All
I see ancestry are appealing to information commissioner about not getting access to Scottish records why should we hand them over to an American venture capital firm
Yours aye
BruceL
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Absolutely agree. All revenue from Scottish records should come back for investment in Scotland, not go to line the pockets of the owners of the world's largest repository of genealogical disinformation.
They'd do better to get hold of records from US states where they aren't currently readily available. And/or to set up a system for getting rid of wrong information.
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I agree.
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I agree, they don’t seem to be very fussed about copyright either. They allow users to breach it every day.
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I agree, they don't seem to be very fussed about copyright either. They allow users to breach it every day.
I am not here to defend Ancestry but I think you have perhaps misunderstood how the law of copyright works. Ancestry make it fairly clear in their terms and conditions where they stand on copyright with regard to material submitted by their users. You can read them here: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/c/legal/copyright-policy
As the terms mention, the website (including ancestry.co.uk) operates under the US law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This specifically removes the company from liability (ie it can't be sued) if one of its users publishes something which infringes someone else's copyright. The condition for this is that they don't exercise prior editorial control over such material. The dispute remains between the copyright owner and the alleged infringer. Ancestry are not even able to intervene or arbitrate in a dispute, but have to follow the DMCA procedure to retain immunity from liability.
As it sounds as if you think some other users have infringed your copyright you should follow the procedure laid out in the site's terms and conditions. However before doing so may I suggest that you check the provisions of section 29 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/29) of the UK Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, and make sure that you have adequate proof that, not only are you the legal owner of the copyright, but also that copyright still applies to the work in question. For example photographs taken before 1 January 1945 in the UK or by a UK citizen, are now out of copyright (see section 21 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/1-2/46/section/21/enacted) of the 1911 Copyright Act)
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I think you have just made my point for me.
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As the terms mention, the website (including ancestry.co.uk) operates under the US law
That statement on its own is quite enough to justify a refusal by UK agencies to hand over records collected and managed under UK law.
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I must admit to be split on this. I am no fan of Ancestry and giving them access to all the Scottish records would not be ideal.
BUT
It would give us subscription based access to records.
I have many thousands of ancestors around the Newton and Inveresk parishes going back to the start of records, a lot of whom have the same names (20 Abraham Moffats, 17 Alexander Moffats). The only way to sort this lot out properly is to look at a lot of records which under the present system is prohibitively expensive.
I find it illustrative of the mindset of the NRS that their defense in this case was mostly based on the effect on their "income stream". That's us, and that's how they see us, as a cash cow to be milked.
The management of this organization has been pretty awful for a number of years now, witness leaking roof, failed software updates, glacially slow drip of new records being released, delayed census release.
My hope is that this will give them or the Scottish Government a kick up the pants to properly fulfill their mandate to "collect, preserve, AND PUBLISH" Scottish records. My expectation is somewhat different.
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The only delayed census release that I can remember was the 1921 one and if you remember that was in the middle of COVID.
As for Scotland's people being a cash cow I find if you do your homework it is probably the cheapest and most accurate of all the records as you get to see the original.
Yours Aye
BruceL
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I did say "release", I meant 1921, it was in COVID but by the time COVID started they should have been doing the final checks, also the English managed with 10 times the records ! They had basically as long as they liked, they knew the release date decades ago and still managed to miss it by over a year.
I would like to think that 1931 is well in hand by now, with contracts placed, work schedules planned and test transcripts approved. Want to bet it is ?
On the second point, how exactly do you "do your homework" without looking at actual records for which ScotlandsPeople hold a monopoly apart from old Victorian Transcripts of a few parishes. I spend £20 a month on ScotlandsPeople (because I impose that limit) which equates to 13 images a month. I spend about the same on Ancestry for which I can look at the entirety of Lancashire (and many other) parish records. The only alternative is a long day out in Hawick or Edinburgh looking at records there, which costs more (I've tried it).
All of this is of course only for the records they choose to release. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of further "Other Church" records where the only choice is a long visit to Edinburgh to trawl through un-indexed records. Given the cost of hotels in Edinburgh these days that's totally out of the question, I haven't been able to afford those trips since I retired.
As I said originally I'm no fan of Ancestry and really don't want them to have the records (at least not solely them). What I really want is for ScotlandsPeople to actually be for Scotland's People.
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Hi
Have a look here
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=562668.0
Yours Aye
BruceL
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...There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of further "Other Church" records where the only choice is a long visit to Edinburgh to trawl through un-indexed records. Given the cost of hotels in Edinburgh these days that's totally out of the question, I haven't been able to afford those trips since I retired.
As I said originally I'm no fan of Ancestry and really don't want them to have the records (at least not solely them). What I really want is for ScotlandsPeople to actually be for Scotland's People.
There are millions of records in other archives too, the vast majority of which are not available via either Scotland's People, Ancestry, or any other commercial provider. While Ancestry might want some of these, and then get them on whatever kind of deal they make, this is a different issue which is covered in the ICO's decision.
Scotland's People is for Scotland's People, but the records are really only a tiny tiny part of what's actually out there. Not everything will ever appear online either, and not everything will ever be available via one central site. Not everything is in Edinburgh! There are records and indexes and datasets available all over the place, some for free, some you have to send away for a book, and some you have to pay to access online. There is a wider discussion to be had about paying for access to records, either in person or online, but this particular request by Ancestry was refused on a specific point regarding re-use of public sector information.
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bleckie,
Some useful stuff in there, thanks. I'd forgotten we had to pay to search.
Archivos,
Agree with everything you say. What however is the "specific point regarding re-use of public sector information". Does the Information Commissioner want to encourage re-use or restrict re-use ? It isn't clear. The rest of the BBC article I read talked finances.
I don't want free access, I want affordable access for my needs. As far as I can see the only way to achieve that is a subscription model of access, or perhaps bulk pricing on a sliding scale.
To give an example of Other Church records, about 15 years ago I had reason to want to access Nicolson Square Methodist Church records and was told they were not microfilmed and were held off-site. I would have to preorder the volumes I wanted and spend some days in Edinburgh reading them. At that point I gave up. As far as I can see they are still not filmed and are certainly not online and what is worse there is no evidence, like a filming and release schedule, that they ever will be. Equivalent records in England were filmed in the 1950's and are available through multiple subscription sources.
I don't really want to get into specific records but I would like to think that these records were being filmed on a well considered schedule and that they would one day appear online if only to stop them being lost to an unfortunate fire or dropping to bits through age.
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Index searching is free on Scotlands People. You can use any number of sites to hone in on the person you need.
They have also with the use of volunteers improved the indexing on mother’s maiden names, so finding families is pretty straightforward.
Even with complex ones.
There are lots of records still to be scanned and transcribed.
This either takes money, or volunteers.
Ancestry seem to be trying to monetise everything, and seem to have backed off on their assistance of scanning and indexing. There are lots of improvements they could be doing with the records they already have.
The records office have no control over making. records other than those they own available. The Scottish Catholic records used to to be available, Ancestry had a long window to make those available if they had negotiated direct with the church.
Similarly the Methodist records are the property of the Church, and as such have to give permission for them to be copied.
Apologies if this turned into a bit of a flame.
Just as a PS, most other records are not available on Ancestry and are more expensive, GRO, Australia, and elsewhere.
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Thats ok David I don't mind you ganging up on me, it's fun, but I do notice you're all cherry picking my points. Nobody's addressed the leaking roof, failed software updates, glacially slow drip of new records being released.
All of which is besides the point I originally made, I want to do research, not find people who are nicely indexed and catalogued but to figure out how families fit together.
Any examples I give are from my head as I haven't looked at this part of my tree for a number of years and so should be taken as a type exemplar rather than a specific query I have but here we go -
I have about five Abraham Moffats born between 1780 and 1795, who between them marry five women, all born in Inveresk or Newton, all from coal mining stock, all marry about 1815 ish. As they are coal miners most don't last til 1855 so no or little death info. The way I pieced them together was to get every bit of information I could on their families and work it out. For example the Abraham Moffat who was buried in Newton in 1835 could only be the one who had a brother William, who was still alive in 1835, and who had a connection to Newton (as he didn't live there) as he ordered the burial. This was done over ten years ago when I was working and could afford to look at a whole bunch of images. Stuff like abode, occupation, and any incidental info, isn't ever indexed you just have to look. I have done similar for parishes in East Lothian as they are well represented on FreeReg.
The problem I have is that there are probably another twenty or more similar problems I would like to sort out. Once you are deep in parish records then it gets very difficult to say that the person getting married is a specific person born 21 years or so earlier, there is no linking record. Naming patterns of children will only take you so far if they're all 1st, 2nd or 3rd cousins and have less than twenty given names between them, and you don't really know if all the children were baptised, or where.
I hope from all this blather you see my problem, I need subscription access so that I can look at whole families without it costing me a fortune. I wish ScotlandsPeople would give me this, but they won't, Ancestry will.
Also why won't they give me a subscription, the marginal cost of a download is about zero, the costs are all up front, it would be simple for them to calculate the subscription cost to balance out the loss of one-off purchases and if they get it wrong it can be adjusted at any point.
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Hi Steve
Prior to statutory registration in 1855 it was down to the church to record births marriages etc. It cost the families and not everyone could afford the expense and not all church officers were diligent in recording events therefore not all events were recorded so there will be gaps in records. If you look at Scotland's people it tells you what OPRs are available
Yours Aye
Bruce
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Steve,
I wasn’t ganging up on you specifically. It was about the general assumption there seems to be that the Scottish approach is bad.
I have exactly the same issue as you with Mid and East Lothian mining families.
However, you can put together pretty certain families in Scottish Records as depending a bit on the parish most have mothers maiden names.
There will be oddballs out there, but that is like any research.
My parents did a pretty good job of untangling them just with the IGI on microfiche. Most of what i have done since has been to confirm and add the odd additional person / marriage as later records become available.
They also spent a lot of volunteer time indexing the SP records, SP was way ahead of the world in making records available. When my parents started you still had to go to individual parishes or County record offices to see English records.
As far as I can see apart from volunteer efforts, England is still harder or more expensive.
Looks like you are fortunate, most of them lived past statutory registration. So you get their mothers for free.
https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/record-results/82378028068d59d47c5a73?sort=asc&order=Year#main_search_results
PS if we are talking about Moffats and Gordons or Moffats and Prides we are probably related!
PPS I would love it if they gave a bulk discount rather than subscription.
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Moffats by the hundred, a handful of Prides and the odd Gordon. Starting with James Moffat and Janet Kaidgley m. 1661 in Lasswade
Your PPS is what my main point of complaint is, why can't they offer a subscription ?
Also why do you see bulk discount as preferable, I see the opposite. Since I just want to read the records before I download. My downloads would probably decrease compared to now since I wouldn't have to fish in the dark, I'd only download the record I was looking for.
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Steve,
Well it’s a business model, it costs money to buy rent scanners, transcribe etc. This number can be calculated. Hence a cost per certificate, they also provide a fantastic rescan / support desk. Usually same day I find for poor images, I don’t see Ancestry doing that.
If they offered subscriptions they would have to pitch it at a price point that might put people off, especially if they only have a few ancestors from Scotland. Currently all indexing searches are free, Ancestry seem to add remove features costs at a whim.
Currently if I bought an image from SP I can see it again for free, all held on their servers 25 years after I first looked. Indeed as long as the account is live, you can see the records.
They have now also added bulk download of viewed certificates, so you don’t have to do it one at a time.
Have you suggested subscription or other option to them, they seem to be responsive to suggestions.
As I said before if you have an Ancestry or FindMyPast subscription you can be 95% certain you have the right person.
With Ancestry I am paying for thousands of records I am completely uninterested in, every year, so you win some, you lose some.
Personally I prefer the SP approach, and going back to the original point, I dislike SP being taken to court by a company owned by a hedge fund.
PS since you are paying for a page, not an entry, you quite often get results for free as well!
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The BBC article I read
The BBC article https://bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy50gn5353zo is rather brief
Whodoyouthinkyou are gives a better idea https://whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/ancestry-nrs-records
Ancestry are after everything digital images and associated transcripts of census, wills and civil records and want free reign to use any way they wish under Open Government Licence - on a “royalty-free” basis. They argue that as FamilySearch have [microfilm] data then they are being discriminated against. They were & are open to discussing a licencing agreement and payment but NRS sees it as opening the floodgates to requests/demands from other Companies for the same images and metadata transcript and having ramifications on their ability to perform their public functions and on future work.
One wonders if Ancestry were also testing the water as if ultimately successful then they might consider further requests and challenges with other UK bodies and County Archives. Similar vital BMD images and indexes in their home country have greater public access restrictions and costs. They seem content to let Reclaim the Records chase those from State Archives via FOI, put online free, and then copy and put behind a paywall.
NRS is funded by the Scottish Government and by the income generated from ScotlandsPeople, the latter intended to be reinvested in the delivery of public services. The fees they charge approved by the Scottish Parliament.
Ancestry used The General Regulatory Chamber, a First-tier Tribunal to appeal against the Information Commissioner's Office and NRS' rejection of their data request. The Tribumal has ruled in Ancestry's favour on one aspect but against in several.
The full arguments, evaluations and decisions can be read via the National Archives
https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukftt/grc/2025/1088
Some excerpts are below but others might pick other bits.
Ancestry’s "Mr Atkinson accepted that the Request is for a valuable resource, unique to NRS, providing significant revenue to NRS, so that Ancestry might exploit it commercially"
"The effect of Ancestry’s submission is to deny an archive its threshold discretion and to make permission to re-use mandatory,"
268. In reality, Ancestry is asking us [the Tribunal] to examine and determine the limits of reasonableness in the exercise by a public sector body of a discretion which, if exercised so as to permit the requested re-use, would, as NRS would have it, mean it having to divest itself of, or at least potentially significantly diminish in its hands the value of, a unique asset which is currently fundamental to the performance of the public sector body’s public task, and to expose itself to additional, and potentially very substantial, ongoing costs, at an ultimate cost to the public purse.
269. It seems to us that that significantly exceeds the bounds of what the Commissioner and the Tribunal are set up to do under FOIA as modified for the purposes of RPSI. [Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations]
Decision: The Appeal is Allowed in part and Dismissed in part.
278. The Tribunal finds that the Request was a request for re-use within the meaning of RPSI. To that extent, the Decision Notice is not in accordance with the law, and to that extent the Appeal must be allowed.
279. The Tribunal finds that NRS’s exercise of its discretion to refuse the Request was not in breach of any requirement of RPSI. To that extent the Decision Notice is in accordance with the law, and the Appeal must be dismissed.
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I don't want free access, I want affordable access for my needs. As far as I can see the only way to achieve that is a subscription model of access, or perhaps bulk pricing on a sliding scale.
To give an example of Other Church records, about 15 years ago I had reason to want to access Nicolson Square Methodist Church records and was told they were not microfilmed and were held off-site. I would have to preorder the volumes I wanted and spend some days in Edinburgh reading them. At that point I gave up. As far as I can see they are still not filmed and are certainly not online and what is worse there is no evidence, like a filming and release schedule, that they ever will be. Equivalent records in England were filmed in the 1950's and are available through multiple subscription sources.
I don't really want to get into specific records but I would like to think that these records were being filmed on a well considered schedule and that they would one day appear online if only to stop them being lost to an unfortunate fire or dropping to bits through age.
This is the crux, what affordable means to different people. I don't have a subscription to Ancestry, as I don't use it enough. I don't mind the credit system on Scotland's People as a result, as it allows me to dip in and out, find information from the free indexes, look at some church records for free, and then decide if I want to part with any money.
Ordering records to look at which are held offsite is really common, and while the issue of access when not in the same country or can't get to where they are held is the same as it ever was, it does seem more frustrating now as there is other information online. A subscription service for Scotland's People isn't going to solve this though.
And thanks to Jon_ni for the fuller explanation of the tribunal outcome, much appreciated!