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The Newsletter of the Family Records Centre (FRC)
Issue 36 - October 2006

Prize Competition
Kew 2008 Update
GRO Service Targets
What's on at the FRC

Closure Dates

2006
Monday 25 December & Tuesday 26 December

2007
Monday 1 January
Friday 6 April to Monday 9 April (inclusive)
Monday 7 May
Monday 28 May
Monday 27 August
Tuesday 25 December & Wednesday 26 December

2008
Tuesday 1 January

1901 census website now available free at the FRC

The National Archives has successfully negotiated a deal to provide free access to the 1901 Census Online website, both at the Family Records Centre and at Kew.

The progress in digitising the census records has been truly remarkable. It's only two years since the 1881 and 1891 censuses were launched on the Ancestry website, but with the online release in April this year of the 1841 census the entire collection is now fully searchable by name.

Now, for the first time, you can search all of the online censuses for England and Wales and download original images free of charge at the FRC and at Kew.

Prize Competition

This month the FRC bookshop has three copies of Chris Pomery's State Secrets to give away. To win a copy, simply answer the following question.

In May 1940, the BBC broadcast a request for volunteers to join a local defence force, which was eventually to lead to the formation of the Home Guard. But which statesman made the momentous announcement?

a) Neville Chamberlain
b) Anthony Eden
c) Winston Churchill
d) Clement Attlee

Answers by email with the word 'Competition' in the subject heading. One entry per person please. The closing date for entries is Friday 5 January 2007.

July's prize (a copy of Medals: The researcher's guide) was won by John Rutter of Eccles, who correctly identified the Victoria Cross as the highest award in the British military honours system.

For the Record...

Research has shown that roughly 3% of the 1861 census returns is missing or damaged. A major project is now underway to identify and list the missing sections. The London registration districts have already been fully checked with some interesting results. Hampstead is the most complete (at 98.5%) while St George's Hanover Square is at the bottom of the list with only 34.7% surviving. We are planning to make the information available online but at present it is only accessible on request at the FRC.

Kew 2008

Two meetings were held in September (one at the FRC and one at Kew) to discuss The National Archives' project to relocate its family history services to Kew in 2008.

The purpose of the meetings was to focus on the transfer of FRC staff and services to Kew by the end of 2008 and to seek users' views on how the Kew family history services should be delivered.

Jill Allbrooke (Manager of TNA's services at the FRC) began the meetings with a presentation outlining the main factors behind the decision to relocate:

• Although, in the nine years since its opening, the FRC has been successful and popular, the context in which it operates is changing markedly.
• Visitor numbers are down by a third since the 2002-03 peak.
• Most of the FRC's sources are available online and over 40% of UK households now have a broadband connection (70% have access to the internet), and this figure is rising all the time.
• The Office for National Statistics is currently digitising the birth, marriage and death indexes and will make these available online for the first time. TNA will pursue an online partnership with ONS/GRO.

Chris Cooper (Head of Reader Services at Kew) said that he was aware that the relocation was unpopular but it was an operational necessity for TNA to proceed since it faced reduced funding by Government. TNA remained committed to providing a high quality family records service.

On 13 September, Baroness Ashton of Upholland (TNA's minister in the Department for Constitutional Affairs) visited Kew and held a meeting with some of the key stakeholders in the family history community. The group had strong views on the main issues and their views will help to shape the draft plan, due to be published early in the new year.

Reports of the meetings, along with details of upcoming consultations, can be found on the Kew 2008 webpage, at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/kew2008.htm.

GRO Production Update

Although the summer months saw a traditional drop in applications compared to previous months, the overall demand for certificates continues to increase.

The six month period from the beginning of April to the end of September saw an 11% increase in applications on the same period in 2005 - the General Register Office (GRO) is currently on target to break the 2 million barrier for the year. Heady days when you consider that as recently as 1998, annual demand barely exceeded half a million certificates.

Most of the increase has come from customers using the online ordering service, which now accounts for well over 70% of all applications.

In contrast, applications at the Family Records Centre have fallen - down 28% from 7,700 a week a year ago to 5,500 a week in September 2006.

Another trend is the increase in the proportion of applications where the full GRO reference is quoted. Work for the GRO Research teams now accounts for only 7% of the work, down from 12% a year ago. No doubt the increased availability of access to online indexes is a major factor here.

GRO Service Targets

Each month performance is measured against a number of targets. The following table details General Register Office (GRO) performance for the period July to September 2006 in some of the areas monitored. The target set for each work area is 95% of applications to be processed in the set number of days recorded in the table.

This quarter, as the table shows, GRO has been successful in meeting its targets in all but one of these areas.

The third series of the popular TV show 'Who Do You Think You Are?' has recently been shown on BBC1 and GRO has taken steps to try to ensure that they are able to maintain the level of service with the likely impact of increased workloads as a result of the extra interest generated in family history research.

200 year-old seeds germinated

Botanists at Kew Gardens are used to planting seeds and letting them grow, but never before has the team been asked to use seeds that date back 200 years. This is just what happened, however, when Roelof van Gelder, a guest researcher from the Royal Dutch Library, found 32 different species of seeds in 40 small packets stored in a red leather-bound notebook within files held at The National Archives in Kew.

The notebook was inscribed with the name Jan Teerlink, a Dutch merchant who is believed to have collected the seeds during a trip to the Cape of Good Hope in 1804. Germination was going to be tricky but not impossible once colleagues from the Millennium Seed Bank were called in to help.

Seeds from each of the 32 species were sent to the Millennium Seed Bank. Now three have germinated and the ancient specimens are growing into healthy, vigorous young plants in the glasshouses at Kew's satellite garden, Wakehurst Place in West Sussex.

Did You Know...

...contrary to popular opinion, the 1874 Registration Act had little or no effect on the volume of births registered in England and Wales. In fact, there was a slight drop in birth registrations in the year after the Act came into force, suggesting that non-registration was perhaps not such a big problem after all!

Heritage Day Success

On Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 September 2006, the General Register Office at Smedley Hydro in Southport opened its doors to the public for the National Heritage weekend. Visitors were offered tours around the historic building, describing the history of its use as a Hydrotherapy Hotel and the treatments that were available to guests. Stands were set up in the ballroom for visitors to find out more about the work being carried out on the site today.

The event was promoted with adverts in the local press and with an interview on Dune FM, the local radio station. Over the weekend more than 350 guests attended the event. Guests included the Mayor and Mayoress of Sefton along with Lancashire Life magazine who photographed the Heritage tour and are due to run an article on the event later in the year.

New Books from The National Archives

Another bumper crop of new titles on offer from The National Archives:

All for Love: Seven centuries of illicit liaisons - Val Horsler (£19.99); October 2006

A poignant and amusing guide to our ancestors' hidden desires, that uncovers people's real attitudes to sexual transgressions, from the rumbustious fourteenth century to the 'permissive society' of the 1960s.

State Secrets: Behind the scenes of the 20th century - Chris Pomery (£7.99); September 2006

Everyone loves a good secret - especially if it reveals the cunning, humanity or plain eccentricity of those in power. Here The National Archives presents the 'news behind the news' on subjects from the Coronation loo rolls, to a century of celebrity scandal and world war.

Mary Tudor: The tragical history of the first Queen of England - David Loades (£19.99); September 2006

David Loades, one of the UK's leading experts on the Tudor period, provides the full personal and political story behind 'Bloody Mary', England's first ruling queen.

The Chart

The current top sellers in the FRC bookshop:

1 The Genealogist's Internet - Peter Christian
2 Tracing Your Ancestors in The National Archives - Amanda Bevan
3 State Secrets - Chris Pomery
4 Easy Family History - David Annal
5 Medals: The Researcher's Guide - William Spencer

Three copies of State Secrets are up for grabs in our prize competition.

All our books are available from the shops at the Family Records Centre and The National Archives, Kew, and from all good bookshops throughout the country. They can also be purchased by telephoning 01904 431213 or online from: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/bookshop.

An Indian Summer at the FRC

The FRC's first ever family history conference, Ancestors in British India, took place on Saturday 23 September. The conference was organised in association with the Families in British India Society (FIBIS) and featured six lectures from experts in the field. The fifty tickets available were sold out well in advance. Feedback from the event was very good:

• 'well organised and extremely worthwhile'
• 'an excellent conference, well prepared and professionally presented'
• 'excellent idea - look forward to more'
• 'I appreciated the professional approach and delivery'

We are hoping to host further events in 2007.

Out and about

This year staff from the FRC, together with colleagues from TNA, Kew and GRO (Southport), have attended a wide variety of local and national family history events.

As well as running stalls at major events such as the Society of Genealogists' Family History Show, the Yorkshire Family History Fair and the National Family History Fair in Gateshead, we've been at a number of family history days organized by local record offices. Staff have also given talks at family history society meetings.

These events are a great opportunity for us to offer advice and guidance to researchers who are unable to visit the FRC regularly and to help them to get the best out of the wide range of online resources available to family historians.

Computer tutorials

Are you scared of the internet? Does the thought of getting to grips with a mouse fill you with terror?

The Family Records Centre runs free one-to-one Computer Skills Tutorials on Thursdays throughout the year, to help you make the most of the huge range of material available online.

Family History Surgeries

It's now nearly two years since we held our first family history surgery at the FRC and in that time our expert staff have helped over 200 people to untangle the knots in their research.

If you've come up against a brick wall in your research and you feel that you could benefit from some advice and guidance, why not contact us today and book a one-to-one session.

We don't have magic wands but our experienced staff should be able to suggest some ideas for further research that you may not have considered - sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can work wonders!

To book a family history surgery or computer skills tutorial, please phone us on: 0208 392 5300 or send an email to: frc@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

We're Talking To You - in association with Ancestors Magazine

We've got another full programme of talks coming up at the FRC. The highlights this winter include a new talk in November by Audrey Collins on the Fleet Marriage Registers, while on 23 January, Michael Gandy will be at the FRC to look at Huguenot Ancestry. All our talks (Tuesdays and Saturdays) now start at 2pm. Saturday talks are in italics.

• 4 Nov - Family History on the Internet
• 7 Nov - London Metropolitan Archives
• 14 Nov - Census Returns Online
• 21 Nov - Fleet Marriage Registers
• 28 Nov - 10 Good Reasons To Visit the Hyde Park Family History Centre
• 2 Dec - Introduction to Family History
• 5 Dec - Births, Marriages & Deaths at the FRC 2007
• 6 Jan - Census Returns Online
• 9 Jan - The International Genealogical Index
• 16 Jan - The Secrets of the FRC
• 23 Jan - Huguenot Ancestry
• 30 Jan - Doctor Williams' Birth Registry
• 3 Feb - Tracing Your Ancestors at the FRC

Please note: Tickets for the talks are free and can be collected on the day of the event from the New Customers desk on the first floor. Places are strictly limited. Tickets will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis and cannot be booked in advance.

Further information

If you would like more information about any of the items in this newsletter please telephone us on 0845 603 7788 (GRO enquiries) or 0208 392 5300 (TNA enquiries). You can also email us at:

frc@nationalarchives.gov.uk

or visit our website at:

www.familyrecords.gov.uk/frc

To subscribe to the electronic version of the Family Record please send an email with the word 'Subscribe' in the subject heading to:

FRC-Newsletter@nationalarchives.gov.uk

The Family Record is jointly produced by the General Register Office (GRO) and The National Archives (TNA)