Worst possible outcome

[Steve3180]

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.

[bleckie]

Hi

Have a look here

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=562668.0

Yours Aye
BruceL

[Archivos]

...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.

[Steve3180]

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.

[David Nicoll]

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.

[Steve3180]

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.

[bleckie]

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

[David Nicoll]

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.

[Steve3180]

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.