I have been trying to find deaths of my relatives that may have occurred between 1957 and 1984.....there is a gap of 27 years missing?
Is this temporarily or that those years have never been available?
Thanks Kaz
The explanation is quite complex but starts with the 2002 scheme to modernise BMD records. In 2015 I wrote the following. -
“Back in the mists of time (2002) it was deemed that the GRO undertake a modernisation project for the BMD records.
That project was divided into three sections
DoVE (Digitisation of Vital Events)
EAGLE (Electronic Access to GRO Legacy Events)
MAGPIE (MultiAccess to GRO Public Index of Events)
These were later replaced by DIP (Digitisation and Indexing Project)
DoVE proceeded a pace but unfortunately the contractor pulled out before the project was complete. The digitisation only covered births 1836-1934 & deaths 1836-1957. No marriages were digitised.
EAGLE is used to access and supply the public with printed scans of entries for the above years of births & deaths.
Any certificates outside the above dates and requests for marriages are supplied by either printed microfilm copies or computer “typed” transcripts of the entries.
The egg containing MAGPIE never hatched (perhaps it was infertile) and was discarded.
DIP is a very secretive bird that is only occasionally spotted, nobody knows of its habits.
I can report that it was seen motionless in September 2008 (experts said it was paused) but later reports said its work was partially completed in August 2010 and has since been abandoned.
The official line is
“Digitisation and indexing of civil registration records in England and Wales was partially completed by 2010. Completing the process would require significant investment and there are no current plans to resume this work. HM Passport Office will continue to monitor the scope for future opportunities to digitise all birth, death and marriage records.””
Since then the GRO has provided an online index for the records digitised under “DoVE” see above.
These digitised records have been supplemented with digital records of deaths (these records were created as computer records and did not require digitising) and cover the period 1984 to 2019.
It has been suggested that the records between 1957 and 1984 will be digitised when funds become available but no timescale has been set down for this to happen.
Cheers
Guy
