Good News ! 1911 Census!

[kerryb]

But sadly all too typical!  Is it just family history orgs or is it the same in other sectors as well??

Kerry

[Nick29]

Well, it's a booming industry, which is why the original owners of Genes Reunited, Ancestry and FindMyPast have all sold out to big business.

[newburychap]

Why should their units have expiry dates anyway?  What is the justification for this?

The problem with unexpired credits is that they stay on the books as a debt - forever. Many such credits will never be used so the debt will never go away. Putting an expiry date helps clear them up. The accountants love it - the customers are less keen.

I would say that a lengthy expiry period would not be unreasonable - say 2 or 3 years.

However, I do note that ScotlandsPeople do not have an expiry date on their credits - I have some that are a couple of years old, I will have to buy some more to reactivate them, but I will be able to use the lot.

[toni*]

thanks for explaining that 

[Sloe Gin]

I would say that a lengthy expiry period would not be unreasonable - say 2 or 3 years.

That would be acceptable.  Or say 5 years, even better.  But the present system is a rip-off. 

The nature of this type of research means that one often has to wait some time for a breakthrough, upon which one might have more look-ups to do.  And one is then denied the use of credits that have been fairly paid for.

[trish251]

I really don't see the situation as a "rip-off"  - 12 months seems reasonable and 2 months for 7 pounds also reasonable.

When I started using SP I think the units only lasted 24 hours (I could be wrong on that one) - then it was 7 days. Now it is 3 months. Despite not being completely lost, when they went, you had to buy more to get them back, so you needed to "save up" your searches, which was frustrating.

I didn't like FindMyPast at all when they started - with not very well indexed BDMs. I spent a small fortune finding nothing! That was a true rip-off. I haven't yet been back.

They have many more databases now, so I don't think it would be hard to use the credits in the time period. Thus said, I think I'll wait for the final detail for 1911 before buying anything.

Wonder if Ancestry will try it's own transcription as they did with the Scotland Census?

Trish

[Nick29]

I'm afraid the whole purchase of vouchers thing doesn't sit well with me, because I sit there worrying about how much it's all costing.  To find one of my ancestors in a particular census on Ancestry, I had to wade through 30 or 40 pages to find the right entry, and to do that on PPV would have been very expensive.

I'm not sure transcription is so important with the 1911 census, because part of the attraction of this census will be that you will be able to see the census returns themselves, in your ancestor's own handwriting, and not an emunerator's collation.  Of course, some help may be required to decypher handwriting, but nothing new there, right ? 

[smeghead]

I feel a monthly subscrition would be better and would avoid the worry of ppv and would mean you could look at as many records as you like even if it cost more


Jim

[toni*]

yes but the 1911 census is not available on the subscription Jim