FindmyPast (www.findmypast.co.uk) has announced that the 1939 National Register records for England and Wales are to be launched on November 2nd - see https://blog.findmypast.co.uk/announcing-the-release-of-the-1939-register-1424355718.htmlBrace yourselves though for the cost announcement:
Records will be available to purchase for £6.95 per household, or £24.95 for our 5 household bundle (£4.99 per household). Findmypast subscribers will be entitled to a discount, which we will email you about
UPDATE: The following additional information has just been supplied in a press release from FindmyPast:
The Register is free to search but there is a charge to view the records with different pay per view packages starting at £6.95. Owing to data protection, there will be some closed records at the time of launch, either because the individual recorded is still living and less than 100 years old or proof of death has not been verified. At time of launch 28 million records will be searchable. The Register will be updated weekly. Findmypast, working with The National Archives, will have an ongoing process to identify records which can be opened on proof of death provided either by matching against robust data sets or supplied by users. Records will also be opened as people reach the age of 100 years+1 day.
(With thanks to Alex Cox)
Chris
For details on my genealogy guide books, including my recently released Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. My Pinterest account is at https://www.pinterest.com/chrismpaton/.
The natives are indeed restless over the pricing and given the marginal value of the Register for most (though not all) of us, it's hard to see this being a success. FMP's communication's strategy has yet again been an utter liability to the company. I agreed totally with their refusal to give tighter dates than "by the end of the year". But they should have been trailing the launch with "The expense is such that ..."
ReplyDeleteThanks for passing on the PR, Chris -- I hadn't seen that yet. I wonder what they mean by "The Register is free to search but there is a charge to view the records ...". If you search it, what do you actually see if you don't elect to "view the records".
ReplyDeleteFirstly, what about Scotland where is our records?
ReplyDeleteSecond class again!!
Scottish 1939 records have been accessible for at least five years, via a £15 search per individual as recorded in the register - see http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/national-register.
ReplyDeleteNorthern Irish records are entirely free to access from PRONI (www.proni.gov.uk), via a Freedom of Information request.
If you type 1939 into the 'Search This Blog' box on the left of this page, I've posted many posts in the past on how to access both, and the type of information available from the records. Also check this site's predecessor, Scottish GENES, archive link is on the left of this page.
Thanks Chris.
DeleteMaybe the Scottish cost will be lower to bring into line with England! Not holding my breath