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The Newsletter of the Family Records Centre (FRC)
Issue 22 Spring 2003 (9th online edition)

Closure Dates in 2003

Monday 5 May (May Bank Holiday)
Monday 26 May (Spring Bank Holiday)
Monday 25 August (August Bank Holiday)
Wednesday 24 to Saturday 27 December (Christmas)

Thursday 1 January 2004 (New Year's Day)

Open Evening - Thursday 15 May

The next FRC Open Evening will be held in the lower ground floor refreshment area on Thursday 15 May from 5.30 pm. This is a great opportunity to meet the FRC's managers and discuss any concerns you may have about our services. Free refreshments will be available.

New Certificate Application Forms

On 1 April 2003 we introduced new application forms for use in the Public Search Room. We would like to take this opportunity to thank those of you who contributed with your comments on the new format when the drafts went on display.

1901 Census at the FRC

Due to increased demand for the 1901 census on microfiche, we have installed an additional five microfiche readers in Area A on the first floor.

The 1901 Census Online service now features an Address Search which you can try out next time you visit the FRC or from the comfort of your home at: www.census.pro.gov.uk.

We're Talking To You - Yet Again!

The Family Records Centre is pleased to announce a full programme of free talks for the summer of 2003. This will be the third year that the FRC has hosted a series of family history talks and we hope that they will be as well attended this year as they have been in the past. There are twelve talks this year, covering a broad range of subjects:

As in previous years, there will be no advance booking for these talks. Spaces are limited and free tickets will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis from the New Customers Desk on the first floor on the day of the talk. All talks will take place in the Meetings Room on the first floor at 2pm and will last for approximately one hour.

Open Forums

Staff from the General Register Office, Southport will be visiting the FRC on the following dates to run Open Forums:

Saturday 17 May 2003 (9:30am to 4pm) Tuesday 16 September (2pm to 7pm) Wednesday 3 December (9:30am to 4pm)

The idea behind the Open Forums is to acquaint users of the FRC with the work processes in Southport and to try to resolve any queries regarding the certificate production process. The Forums are led by managers from Southport with the assistance of FRC staff.

FRC Customer Surveys

A big thank you to all those who have taken part in our recent customer surveys. The information that we gather from these surveys is invaluable to us when planning our future services and helps us to understand who our customers are, how they use the FRC and what they think of the services we offer.

We are delighted to report that in both the recent surveys (December 2002 and March 2003) more than 96% rated the overall service as either 'Good' or 'Excellent'. Details from the March 2003 survey are currently on display at the FRC and will be available on our website shortly.

Meet the Neighbours

Visitors to the FRC on Tuesday 8 and Wednesday 9 April may have been surprised to see that the display area on the first floor had turned into a mini Family History Fair. Staff from nineteen Record Offices and Local Studies Libraries from all over London and the South East accepted our invitation to come along to the FRC and introduce themselves to our customers.

The event was a great success and we are already looking at the possibility of hosting other similar events in the future. Watch this space...

Family History Fairs 2003

Staff from the Family Records Centre will be at the Society of Genealogists Family History Fair at the Royal Horticultural Society New Hall, Greycoat Street, Westminster on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 May.

Later in the year we will be attending the South West Area Group's Fair in Weston-super-Mare (Saturday 5 July) and the Great North Fair at Gateshead (Saturday 13 September). We look forward to meeting you and answering your questions about the FRC.

Staff News

We are pleased to welcome Ron Bickles to the FRC as the new ONS Operations Manager. Ron has taken a sideways move from the Drummond Gate office where he worked in the Finance section. He is looking forward to the challenges that this job will bring and to meeting our customers.

Those of you who know Colin Prendergast, who was filling the post in a temporary capacity, will be interested to know that Colin is moving to Drummond Gate to take up a new position. We all wish him luck in his new venture.

News From The GRO, Southport

Certificates for recent events

A number of customers have asked whether they can get copies of certificates of recent births, marriages and deaths from the FRC or whether they need to apply to the local register office.

The process of receiving copies from the local register offices, microfilming them and producing indexes usually takes up to eighteen months. The microfilmed tapes that are currently available contain events registered up to the following quarters:

Births: December 2001
Marriages: September 2001
Deaths: December 2001

Correction

In the last edition of the Family Record we stated that Buckingham Palace is able to send couples a congratulatory card to celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary. This should have read Diamond, Sapphire or Platinum Wedding Anniversary.

Call Centre Opening Hours

Feedback to GRO has highlighted that customers are experiencing difficulties in accessing the Certificate Services call centre. You will be aware from the Autumn 2002 edition of the Family Record that we recently piloted an extension of the opening hours. This change was trialled for two reasons - to improve the range of services available and ease the number of calls received during the day, thereby improving accessibility.

The extension of the opening hours has been a great success with nearly 1,000 calls being received every week during the evening/Saturday hours. In a recent telephone survey our customers said:

• Please pass on how pleased I am with this service
• I think it is great that you are staying open longer
• I am very impressed with this extended service

Other initiatives in place to help improve access to the call centre include the installation of further telephone lines and recruitment of additional staff.

Certificate Services staff are available to answer your queries on Monday to Friday (8am to 8pm) and Saturday (9am to 4pm). The number to call is: 0845 603 7788.

GRO Indexes

Proposals to relax the conditions of sale relating to index information less than 100 years old and bring them into line with index information over 100 years old have been implemented from 1 April 2003.

These changes allow holders of the GRO microfiche and CD-ROM index to copy information, and/or made it more publicly available. They also permit holders to charge, for example for accessing an Internet site. Copyright should still be acknowledged and information should not be used in a misleading context.

A copy of the revised terms and conditions of sale has been sent to all holders of the GRO fiche. Restrictions however will still apply to information purchased via the CD-ROM Premium Service (provisional index data for recent registrations).

Certificate Services Performance Targets 2002/2003

The demand for certificates continued to rise throughout 2002/2003 with over 950,000 applications received by the General Register Office either via the Family Records Centre or direct to Southport. This is an increase of over 125,000 on the previous year.

Overall our published targets were met in 94.5% of applications.

The ONS targets set for the branch (90%) have been exceeded throughout the year. The more stretching branch targets that we set ourselves (95%) were met in some cases but due to the increase in applications which occurred over a few key months we have fallen just short of attaining them.

The above figures do not include certificates issued from the Adoptions and Overseas records.

A full breakdown of the performance indicators for 2002/2003 is on display in the Public Search Room on the ground floor at the FRC.

News From The National Archives, Kew

The National Archives

On 2 April 2003, the Public Record Office (PRO) and the Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) joined together to form a new organisation - The National Archives.

The HMC is the principal source of information for researchers on the nature and location of archives and manuscripts relating to British history. It maintains the National Register of Archives, the ARCHON directory and portal (giving direct links to record repositories and archival research projects in progress) and the Manorial Documents Register. HMC also offers advice to owners, custodians and users of non-public records. The National Archives will therefore be able to provide information not just about public records (the records of central government and the courts of law) but also about private archives held throughout the UK and overseas, relating to all aspects of British history.

You can find out all you need to know about The National Archives at the new website: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk.

New at Kew

2003 has seen the release of some important documents on microfilm for the first time.

The most significant of these is a series of indexes to holders of passports in the Record Series FO 611/1-25. The Foreign Office: Chief Clerk's Department and Passport Office: Passport Registers Indexes of Names (1851-1916) contains indexes of names of passport holders, giving the serial number and date of issue of each passport. There are no indexes for the period 1863 to 1873.

Also available in the Microfilm Reading Room at Kew are some important army pension records. The Record Series WO 117 relates to pension admission books for pensions awarded to soldiers for long service between 1823 and 1920.

Another series of records which will be of major interest to family and military historians is the collection of Household Cavalry soldiers' documents. These records (which are not on microfilm) contain the surviving service records of the officers and men who served in the Life Guards, the Royal Horse Guards and the Household Battalion between 1799 and 1920. The documents are in the Record Series WO 400.

Ancestors magazine

The April/May 2003 edition of The National Archives' family history magazine, Ancestors, is now available. The new look edition features articles on early Chancery records, focusing on the new online catalogues which are making access to these sixteenth and seventeenth century records so much easier. There are also articles on tracing South Asian ancestry, Insurance Policy records and Royal Naval surgeons' journals.

Ancestors now has its own direct web address at: www.ancestorsmagazine.co.uk.

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 (NA enquiries) or visit our website at:

www.familyrecords.gov.uk/frc

To subscribe to the electronic version of the Family Record please send an email to:

FRC-Newsletter@pro.gov.uk

with the word 'Subscribe' in the subject heading.

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