ScotlandsPeople Centre closed Tuesday

Following the recent relaunch of the ScotlandsPeople website (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk), things have not been going so well for the National Records of Scotland with regard to both the online version of the site, and the equivalent system that it hosts at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh, and elsewhere across the country. The latest is a power failure in Edinburgh this morning, which has forced the closure of the centre, which has now just announced the following statement:

Monday 24 October: As you may know, we’ve closed our ScotlandsPeople search rooms today following technical difficulties.

We're sorry for the inconvenience, but the search rooms will now also be closed tomorrow, Tuesday 25 October.

The SFHS (Scottish Family History Service) network and some other users are also affected. We’re working hard to resolve the problems and restore services and will continue to provide updates here and at our Twitter account, @scotlandspeople. Our online services and the historical and legal search rooms remain unaffected.

We'll have a further update for customers as soon as possible tomorrow.

The centre announced a few days ago a fairly hefty list of issues it is trying to address for the new website (see http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/scotlandspeople-responds-to-technical.html). Having used the service in Glasgow last week, I encountered a few further problems. An image I requested to be rescanned last Tuesday has still not been done almost a week later, and I have had a few issues with locating index entries for some records. When I called the centre today at 12.30pm I was informed by a recorded message that phone queries will be taken only between 9am and 12pm Mondays to Fridays now. I have read many comments from fellow genies in Scotland over the last few days all experiencing the same exasperating failures of service.

This really isn't good enough, especially for those travelling from afar to connect to their Scottish roots.

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including A Beginner's Guide to British and Irish Genealogy, A Decade of Irish Centenaries: Researching Ireland 1912-1923, Discover Scottish Church Records (2nd edition), Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html.