Quality of GRO Digital Images

[Nick_Ips]

I vaguely seem to recall seeing a working party about the tendering for the scanning.

Tax payers' money was spent to do this and for the project to work, even if purchasers got a bit of the adjoining entry top and bottom.

Commercial companies manage to scan images from microfilm.

Therefore, I find any government excuses rather poor!

Mark

As I posted above, I don't think there was an original intention for the digitised images to be made available to the public, therefore the scanning was probably done on the basis that GRO staff would manipulate the page as necessary to produce the certificate in PDF or paper form.

The public access project "MAGPIE" was for access to the index only (hence the 'I' of MAGPIE) as far as I remember, and this is what we now have (in part) on the GRO website.

My guess (and I'm happy to be corrected) is that the digital images have been made available by using automated image manipulation software to 'extract' the portion of a scanned image the customer requests - therefore it may have nothing at all to do with the original scanning.

Personally I'm happy that I can see an entry for the cost of £3, rather than paying the full cost of a certificate - which is what we had to do before the new index was made available.  If that means a compromise on quality and the occasional error then so be it.  Those seeking something better can still buy a PDF/paper certificate.  I see it as a win-win.

[Philezra]

I think we seek the information that we expect to see, not some of it.

If we "knew" there's a chance information could be missing, it then becomes a good deal, not when you're expecting to see what you asked for.

[Nick_Ips]

I think we seek the information that we expect to see, not some of it.

If we "knew" there's a chance information could be missing, it then becomes a good deal, not when you're expecting to see what you asked for.

The digital image service FAQs do mention that there may be issues with seeing the whole entry and how to go about getting a refund if appropriate.

Although it isn't compulsory to read the FAQs when placing an order.

[Philezra]

Fair enough- didn't know that....but I find it all a bit odd!

[Zaphod99]

I think the whole thing seems to be an

 abso

lute

sham

bles

If we can't get everything on the same line.

Zaph

[Philezra]

Correct.

[BushInn1746]

It was discussed that division of images would need to be altered.

However, they possibly went for the cheapest tender in the end re the digital imaging.


The HHS (Health and Human Services) Department in the United States have been discussing the Covid Vaccine.

There are some very strange claims currently being made at how the high effectiveness was previously arrived at.

Mark

[JenB]

The HHS (Health and Human Services) Department in the United States have been discussing the Covid Vaccine.

There are some very strange claims currently being made at how the high effectiveness was previously arrived at.

I've been following this thread with great interest, but I'm struggling to understand the relevance of the Covid Vacine to the topic?

[Jon_ni]

However, they possibly went for the cheapest tender in the end re the digital imaging.

They did not, cost is one consideration on goverment tenders. In the event the scale of the project was underestimated by both. There are various old long threads on the DOVE, EAGLE, MAGPIE project on here c2006-2010. Siemens did them, a synopsis is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Register_Office_for_England_and_Wales . £8.33 million then, after refund from Siemens given that only 50% had been completed (no marriages).

The cheap uption was a recent addition with no adjustment or human cropping of the digital images. Initially the images were only used on paper certs then offered as pdf's.
The GRO's quarterly copies are a combined bound bundle of various sub-districts.The similar Irish ones some pages are vertical and some are slant and so some have the left or right edges of parts of entries cut off. They are not uniform. It was envisiaged there would be human input before sale, legislation at the time only allowed for paper copies so digitisation was for internal efficiencies more than specifically designed for geneologists, and not with a pdf or jpeg service in mind. We are talking 20 years ago. A GRO cert is a legal 'certified copy of an entry' if handwritten or typed, that was what you got for 150 years.

Another part of the project was modern re-indexing from the images, adding mother's maiden surnames back to 1837 and ages at death, which only commenced 1866 & 1911 on the original period (FreeBMD) indexes.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digitisation-of-vital-events-project-costs/expenditure-on-the-digitisation-of-vital-events-project-of-civil-registration-record

I think the whole thing seems to be a shambles

That is an opinion, many have been happy that they only have to spend a third or a quarter of what they previously had to for their ancestor's information. Not that long ago the only option was a paper cert via snail mail, only to find you had ordered the wrong one. As Nick said they do warn it is a possibility and if people want to avoid it then they need to purchase only the pdf's.
https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/faq.asp