viewing online

[sueky71]

hi
does anyone know why english/welsh records are not available to view online, like the scottish one are through scotlands people?

[Ecneps]

Hi,
Which records do you mean?  Census records are online for England/Wales

Barbara

[sueky71]

hi barbara,
sorry, not very clear there was I?
what i meant was the birth, marriage death certs and parish records.

[Ecneps]

Ahhhhh!

Well, some parish records are online on pay-to-view sites, and there is a sister site to freebmd called freereg which has transcriptions of some English parish registers, and if you look on genuki under the place-name it will tell you the whereabouts of parish records and if there are any transcripts online. I don't think any site has birth, marriage and death details after 1837, you have to send for the certificates.

Barbara

[sueky71]

thanks very much
interesting info, i've heard of freereg and genuki but never actually visited them - something i shall immediately rectify!
thanks again
sue

[trish251]

hi
does anyone know why english/welsh records are not available to view online, like the scottish one are through scotlands people?

I would think part of the reason would be volume. The number of records from England and Wales would be many times as many as the number from Scotland, so a much larger task. Long term the civil records may well be online - but from recent threads on RootsChat, this may be somewhat longer than originally thought.

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,247025.0.html

Trish

[Little Nell]

As far as BMD records are concerned, there is also the difference in the original legislation to consider.  Civil registration in Scotland began in 1855, but 1837 in England and Wales.  I believe that the registers for Scotland have always been available for public inspection in Edinburgh, which as time has gone on has meant that they are now available to view at ScotlandsPeople. 

To find out the same amount of information in England and Wales, the certificate has to be purchased.  The indexes are being digitised (and will be improved I believe) but I don't think that means that we are going to see the registers as one can in Scotland or be able to get it for the relatively small amount that one can for Scottish certificates.

Nell

[MarieC]

But the LDS are indexing and digitising their vast treasure trove of films of parish records, etc, etc, and will eventually be putting them online, free or very cheap.  Not official registration records, but a wonderful help nevertheless.

MarieC

[Simon G.]

Not official registration records, but a wonderful help nevertheless.

Except for in the cases of marriages.  After 1837 parish register entries for marriage are quite literally exactly the same as the civil registration document.  Once the LDS have finished with their project and assuming they provide digital images rather than transcriptions as they do with all the census projects, then there surely is going to be a knock-on effect to revenue from certificates.  I mean if the LDS will provide exactly the same information for free or at least cheaply, who is ever going to pay £7 for a marriage certificate (at least in cases where it's a church wedding in one of the parishes they have films for)?