The next 10 years

[FosseWay]

One area that no-one seems to have mentioned is voluntary transcribing. As far as I'm concerned the high water mark on this, and the service that other volunteer transcription projects should be looking to emulate in coverage and accuracy, is FreeBMD, but it's not the only one. Volunteer transcribing is not incompatible with pay sites (or a market-driven ethos in general), either: there are several useful collections on Ancestry now that were transcribed by members, most notably from my perspective as a user and transcriber, the England and Wales Criminal Registers. IME the volunteer-transcribed collections on Ancestry are more accurately done than the mass commercial undertakings that were the 1841-71 and 1891-1911 censuses, just as FreeBMD is more accurate than the 20th century indexes on Ancestry.

I'd like to see more PRs online too, and a concerted effort to digitise records from overseas that are of interest to UK citizens and historians and which are in danger of being lost through neglect. Ireland would be a fruitful place to start on this, as there's lots of interest in Irish genealogy but very little information available online, especially for Catholic ancestors. Also, having seen Rupert Penry-Jones on WDYTYA last night, what about all those parish registers going back to East India Co. days that are mouldering away in India? The mice had providentially stopped just where RPJ's ancestors' marriage information was recorded -- one extra line of nibbling and he'd have been none the wiser!

I don't know what some people have against Ancestry (and to a lesser extent the other pay sites). While the State has a duty to protect our heritage and to allow us reasonable free access to records, there's nothing to say it must pay to deliver them to our home PCs. Transcribing, indexing, scanning, hosting and administering online collections the size of the UK censuses or BMD indexes is a huge undertaking that takes a lot of resources. Not only are there pressing arguments that these resources might be better spent on more essential services in these straitened times, but also we must remember that we are a minority, albeit a reasonably large one, in the total population. Not everyone feels the burning desire to know where their ggg grandfather lived every 10 years, and they'd struggle to accept that they should pay for our ease of access to such information when they need a new kidney or whatever. As I say -- there's a difference between providing access (which is what the CROs, Kew, the BL etc. do), which should be free, and providing value-added services such as indexing, transcription, delivery to one's home and so on, which I think it only reasonable we should pay for.

[Redroger]

I would not on principle transcribe for a pay site,to me this has connotations of exploitation and cheap (or even slave?) labour.I do believe that the digitisation of parish records in general would be a very useful exercise, and usually without the need for transcription. After all, those that the Mormons put onto film many years ago, and the rest could surely be rephotographed and posted on the net by parish.Once a substantial number were available then the need for look ups etc. by people living overseas would be largely obviated. How about someone going for this one, and without the profit motive?

[Redroger]

See no point in a 75 year closure, as up to 2002 they are all in  the public domain anyway, and afterwards only those who want to be shown are shown. You would still need to know the address, unless you had something else in mind?

[FosseWay]

I would not on principle transcribe for a pay site,to me this has connotations of exploitation and cheap (or even slave?) labour.

No-one's forcing people to do this, so the idea of 'slave labour' is a bit much, IMO. But if it's a choice between a set of archives being available or not, my preference is that they be available. If I have to pay for them, it's then up to me to prioritise my budgeting and decide what I want. I have no qualms at paying my $300 or whatever it is to Ancestry, as the cost per item I download or extract information must be in the low single digits of cents. On the other hand, I'm very selective about which English BMD certificates I order at £9.25 a pop.

Of course, I'd rather there were hundreds of organisations like FreeBMD transcribing all sorts of material that is hard to access otherwise and I'd fully support any organisation doing this on a not-for-profit basis. But there's a more or less infinite supply of genealogically relevant material out there, and it's clear that volunteer groups cannot cover it all, so it's better that sites like Ancestry fill the gap. After all, there's nothing stopping voluntary groups repeating (and improving upon) work already done by Ancestry et al.

I also wonder when people complain about pay per view or subscription sites whether they're being entirely logical. I live about 90 minutes by train from London (on days when miscreants aren't vandalising the railway, anyway) and it would cost me a minimum of £40, and more realistically £60, plus Tube fare and extortionately priced lunch, to visit a London archive. I'd only have to do that six or seven times in a year to have exceeded the amount I pay to Ancestry and FindMyPast combined for access to the same material.

[Redroger]

Just to repeat, Someone using a person's voluntary and unpaid input for profit is at the very least exploitative. It would be useful though if the parish documents which have been microfilmed by the LDS could be put on the net, perhaps by the LDS since they are the people who have the images readily available. Effectively then a source document would be available to researchers, thus making over priced journeys and exorbitant meals a thing of the past.

[Guy Etchells]

Just to repeat, Someone using a person's voluntary and unpaid input for profit is at the very least exploitative. It would be useful though if the parish documents which have been microfilmed by the LDS could be put on the net, perhaps by the LDS since they are the people who have the images readily available. Effectively then a source document would be available to researchers, thus making over priced journeys and exorbitant meals a thing of the past.

Just let me get this clear, it is "exploitative" to use "a person's voluntary and unpaid input for profit" when they knew that is what their transcriptions were going to be used for, but it is acceptable to use more tithes of the LDS to pay for the records they have already paid for to be made available on the net.

Seems to me there is some confused thinking here.

If records are going to be made available on the internet someone has to pay the costs involved.
I am of the opinion that the end user should pay, after all it is the end user who will benefit from the access to the records.
If the company who provides the equipment and the web space makes a profit that is fair enough, they are after all taking the risk and investing the money.
It is only the same as a workman taking a wage.
Cheers
Guy

[millymcb]

I agree Guy.  I'm not quite sure why we should expect the LDS to pay to put the microfilm on the net at their own expense. I am glad they have done as much as they already have done. It would be great if they did do it but I would think some kind of commercial partnership with one of the big companies would be a much better use of their resources.

I don't object to paying for subs when companies have invested time digitising etc. (although obviously I would rather it was cheaper). It must be a huge outlay before they actually recoup anything from subscribers
 
Milly

[Nick29]

I would not on principle transcribe for a pay site,to me this has connotations of exploitation and cheap (or even slave?) labour.

I've done some transcribing for Ancestry.  I got 20% off my subs, which I consider to be a fair reward.  For me, genealogy is about giving and taking.

[millymcb]

But I do object to the cost of BMD certificates etc (ie official Government documents).  I think it is far too high. And I don't just mean for genealogists. 

I have a bee in my bonnet about Death certificates at the moment (modern current ones not ancestor ones).   When someone dies you need to have quite a few copies done and they are all charged at the same rate. Surely there should be a one-off cost for the first one and then a nominal sum for the copies done at the time.  And then stupid companies demand to have them sent to them when there is no need... We have been trying to sort out my late father's internet account and they won't talk to us without a copy of the certificate...which would cost a fortune to buy and send recorded dlivery and then they would probably just lose it.... grrrrrr

Sorry - getting a bit off -topic with that one.   

Milly