National Records of Scotland annual report 2015-2016

The National Records of Scotland (www.nrscotland.gov.uk) has published its annual report for 2015-2016 at https://t.co/L1ouHE3ZwC (it's a downloadable PDF document).

Some interesting facts from the document:

• The ScotlandsPeople Centre and Historical Search Room had 23,400 visitors.
• 47,656 offical extracts of records were purchased.
• 1.1 million people accessed the online ScotlandsPeople website
• 3.5 million new index entries were made available - the site now has 108 million indexed entries.
• 82,152 pieces underwent conservation, inclusing old parish registers and the Upper Clyde Shipbuilding photographic archive.
• Further work has been done to make Church of Scotland kirk session and presbytery registers more user friendly.
• The privately held records of the Dukes of Argyll, from the 15th to 20th centries, have now been catalogued and added to the National Register of Archives for Scotland under NRAS1209.
• The records catalogue of the Admiralty Court from 1557-1830 have been added to the online catalogue.
• The catalogues of the first arrangement of unextracted processes for the Court of Session from 1619-1868 have been added to the online catalogue.
• 2015 saw thre 150th anniversary of the Association of Registrars of Scotland.

It's an interesting read, at 90 pages in length - have fun!

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.

PRONI Deputy Keeper's reports online

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni) has uploaded copies of the Deputy Keeper's reports on records management, preservation, collections management and public services for the years 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 - they can be accessed at https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/publications/proni-deputy-keepers-reports.

Some interesting facts and figures from 2015-2016:

• During 2015/16, PRONI welcomed a record number of 22,294 visitors who made use of the research facilities, attended a lecture or participated in an event. This surpassed the previous record of 20,318 visitors in 2014/15 and exceeded the Departmental target of 22,000. Of those, 3,840 were from outside of Northern Ireland. This included 1,159 from USA; 551 from Australia and New Zealand; and 403 from Canada which reinforces the continued value of ‘roots tourism’ to the Northern Ireland economy.
• PRONI held 82 public events during the year including amongst others: talks by Queen’s University of Belfast on Poverty in Belfast; Irish language presentations by Foras na Gaeilge; and a series on family history sources entitled ‘Your Family Tree’. Most of these were recorded and are available on PRONI’s YouTube channel.
• The Prisons Memory Archive (PMA) was recorded in 2006-2007 and is principally made up of 175 audio-visual digital recordings of prison staff, prisoners, and others who passed through Armagh Gaol and the Maze and Long Kesh Prison. In 2015 a partnership of Queen’s University Belfast, the PMA Management Group and PRONI secured a Heritage Lottery Grant (HLF) for the development phase of a larger project which seeks to preserve the archive, increase accessibility to the recordings and encourage community engagement with it. PRONI and its project partners plan to make an application to the HLF for funding for the delivery phase of this project.
• The PRONI catalogue was expanded by 13,941 item descriptions during the year.

Annex 3 lists privately deposited records during the last year, whilst Annex 4 lists privately deposited records which were catalogued throughout the year. Both are well worth a read.

Finally, last week at the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Springfield, Illinois, FamilySearch's Chief Genealogy Officer, David Rencher, described PRONI as the "the most genealogically friendly in Ireland". He could not have hit the nail on the head more, though personally speaking I would extend that to say the friendliest in the the British Isles - well done Belfast! :)

(With thanks to the PRONI Express)

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including 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.

National Archives at Kew - annual report

The National Archives based at Kew (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk) has released its annual report for 2013-2014. Within the 104 page document are some interesting developments and facts for those of us interested in genealogy.

• 670,000 documents were produced for visitors in 2013-2014
• 202 million documents were downloaded
• 1.2 million catalogue descriptions were added to Discovery
• 10 million new descriptions are being added to Discovery from materials catalogued on other platforms such as the National Register of Archives, Access to Archives and ARCHON (the final migration will be completed by July 31st).
• 20 per cent of visits to the archive's main website were made from a smartphone or tablet
• There have been 2 million podcast downloads
• 1100 enquiries were answered by TNA staff at Who Do You Think You Are? Live
• The digitisation of 1.5 million pages of First World War diaries continues, the archive's largest ever in-house digitisation project
• A contract for digitisation of the English and Welsh 1939 National Identity register was awarded to FindmyPast on 14 FEB 2014

Some interesting data issues have also been reported - for example, on p.51 there's a report on how TNA discovered that around 10% of the records of BT 377/7 (Royal Naval Ratings’ Records of Service (1908-1958), available through Documents Online, concerned people less than 100 years old. This potentially affects some 3000 people who may well still be alive, and as such has been reported to the Information Commissioner - a response is still awaited. The inference here is that these records being online may be a breach of the Data Protection Act. As a precaution, however, TNA has now closed off access to the microform version of the records until 2039, and the affected online records falling into this category have been removed from Documents Online. 288 other records from other collections on Documents Online have also been removed (no further details on these have been given in the report).

There are also details on the archive's environmental performance, remuneration, and a few references to sustainability issues - that phrase now makes me laugh every time I read it, as I keep imagining that there must be a Head of Sustainability constantly arguing with a Head of Legacy, as in the comedy series Twenty Twelve (sorry, I'm easily amused!).

It's been a busy year, with many great developments, particularly with the First World War and cataloguing projects currently under way, for which the archive is to be commended. I would counter that there are also some developments that I would suggest have not been so great - sorry, but I am NOT a fan of what the archive has done with the Gazettes on the new website at www.thegazette.co.uk (you can read how to use this, as well as my criticisms of the new site, in my book British and Irish Newspapers, released earlier this year). Also, if 20% of visits to the TNA website are made by tablet and smartphone, that presumably leaves 80% accessing it by PC, which is not so much fun with the recent redesign that has been heavily weighted towards tablet use. Obviously that will change as we are forced via technological advancements to continue to go down the tablet route, whether we want to or not!

One observation I will make though in praise of TNA. I regularly attend PRONI's user forum in Belfast, and know what is happening through its lively social media interactions with its user base; similarly I have a fair idea of what is going on at TNA through this report and other regular announcements and platforms, as well as its Friends group, which regularly raises money for archive projects. But the National Records of Scotland continues to remain opaque, and could do with engaging more with its users, and in being equally transparent. The UK's other national archives provide great role models in this regard, in shiny new wifi enabled buildings with 21st century mentalities, whilst here in Scotland NRS still needs to catch up, with its wooden walled reading rooms and wooden walled 20th century practices.

Census conference at TNA

Chris

Now available for UK research is the new second edition of the best selling Tracing Your Family History on the Internet: A Guide for Family Historians, whilst my new book British and Irish Newspapers is also now out. And FindmyPast - please reinstate the original Scottish census citations on your new site.