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The Newsletter of the Family Records Centre (FRC)
Issue 25 Winter 2004 (12th online edition)

Closure Dates

Friday 9 April to Monday 12 April (Easter)
Monday 3 May (May Day Bank Holiday)
Monday 31 May (Spring Bank Holiday)
Monday 30 August (August Bank Holiday)
Friday 24 December to Tuesday 28 December (Christmas)

Saturday 1 January to Monday 3 January 2005 (New Year)

Ellen Terry at the FRC

This major new exhibition illustrates the life of one of England's most famous actresses through a selection of documents and photographs taken from the holdings of the FRC and various other archives. The exhibition is free and can be viewed in the display area on the first floor until 5 April.

Theatre Museum Workshops

We are delighted to announce that staff from The Theatre Museum will be visiting the FRC on two days in February to run a variety of activities aimed at educating and entertaining children of all ages from 7 to 97! On Tuesday 17 and Saturday 21 February the display area on the first floor of the FRC will be handed over to The Theatre Museum.

There will be a whole range of activities for children including a family history quiz based on the life of Ellen Terry and a chance for younger children to design their own Victorian tinsel prints. Special workshops will be held on both days at 12:15 and 2:30 with opportunities for children to try on Victorian theatrical costumes and even have a go at acting out scenes from some of Ellen Terry's most popular performances.

All events are free and there is no need to book.

Talks at the FRC

We are continuing to expand our all-year-round programme of Tuesday afternoon family history talks. The following talks have been arranged for the next few months:

24 February - Secrets of the FRC
2 March - 1901 Census Online
9 March - Tracing Your Ancestors at the FRC
6 April - Courts and Criminals in England & Wales
20 April - The FamilySearch website

Tickets are free and will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis from the New Customers Desk on the first floor. All the talks take place in the Meetings Room at 2pm and last for approximately one hour. There is no advance booking.

Open Evening

The following is a selection of the questions raised by customers at the last FRC open evening in November 2003.

Q. Some of the BMD microfiche are difficult to read. Are there any plans to replace them?
A. It would not be cost-effective to replace the existing microfiche particularly in the light of the registration review. If customers have difficulty reading certain fiche they can refer to the paper volumes to check the details.

Q. Are there any proposals to put additional census information on the internet?
A. The National Archives hopes that all the remaining open censuses will be digitised. Discussions are being held with other organisations with the aim of forming partnerships to finance and carry out this work.

Q. Who decides the policy in regard to availability of census returns? Census information relating to Ireland is available after 1901.
A. In the UK, government policy is that the census is closed for 100 years and therefore cannot enter the public domain until this period has expired.

Q. Why is it not possible to obtain paper copies of birth, death and marriage certificates to verify information?
A. Legislation provides that the GRO can only provide information in the form of a certified copy for which a charge has to be made. Proposed changes in civil registration legislation, however, will enable records over 100 years old to be opened up and made available via the internet.

Improvements in the Search Room

As a result of a number of customer suggestions, we have rearranged the marriage indexes from 1927 onwards. We have also installed a number of PCs on the ground floor which will enable visitors to the FRC to access the GRO's online ordering service. These should be in operation by the end of February.

Motorised Microfilm Readers

We are pleased to announce that a further ten motorised microfilm readers have recently been made available in the first floor reading rooms. This has allowed us to improve the service we are able to offer customers with special needs as well as increasing the number of motorised readers overall to 35.

New Reference Sources at the FRC

The FRC has inherited a large collection of reference books from the Historical Manuscripts Commission's former premises in Chancery Lane. Among the most significant new accessions to be found in the reference library on the first floor are copies of Burke's Landed Gentry; Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage; Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy (1660-1815); Buckland's Dictionary of Indian Biography and O'Byrne's Naval Biographical Dictionary. We have also acquired a number of dictionaries covering particular occupations and professions.

Census Surname Indexes on CD

We have recently acquired copies of census surname indexes for Berkshire (1851) & Dorset (1851 & 1891). Please ask at the enquiry desk on the first floor if you would like to use these CDs.

Family History Fairs in 2004

Staff from the FRC will be attending a number of Family History Fairs in the coming year. We will be at The Society of Genealogists' annual fair in London on Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 May and at the Yorkshire Family History Fair in York on Saturday 26 June. Details of other events taking place later in the year will be publicised in future editions of the Family Record.

News From The GRO, Southport

We're changing to meet your needs

We have seen a 58% increase in certificate applications over the last 5 years. This clearly has had a significant effect on our production processes and teams. Despite this impact we are proud that we have not only continued to meet our annual targets but introduced major improvements in services for our customers such as Online Ordering (UK).

We are currently carrying out a reorganisation of the certificate services area at Southport. This is being undertaken to ensure we have systems and processes in place robust enough to cope with further increases.

Our customers should not see any change to the service provided. However, in the short term, if applications exceed our forecasts, there may be some effect on our delivery times.

We remain committed to doing everything possible to ensure our published service targets are met.

Certificate Services Performance Targets

Certificate applications are continuing to rise. Certificate Services performance for October, November and December 2003 is shown below.

*ONS target set for the branch is 90%.

Regrettably, due to the large increase in applications, which exceeded all forecasts, we have fallen short of this during these three months.

2002 Indexes

Indexes to Births and Deaths for the year 2002 are now available at the FRC. The Marriage indexes for 2002 should be available at the FRC in early February 2004. Please note, however, that the latest records available from Southport for certificate production are: births - June 2002, marriages - September 2002 and deaths - December 2002.

GRO Customer Survey 2003 Results

As part of its annual survey, Certificate Services Branch sent out nearly 2000 questionnaires to customers. 808 questionnaires were returned and the results indicate an improvement for the second consecutive year.

The following is a sample of the results:

Q. How do you normally apply for certificates?

• Visit to FRC 37%
• By letter 28%
• By telephone 25%
• By fax 2%
• Others (inc. email) 8%

Q. Why did you apply for a certificate?

• Family history research 84%
• Administration & legal 10%
• Others 6%

Q. How would you rate the service you received?

• Excellent 54%
• Good 39%
• Acceptable 6%
• Poor or unacceptable 1%

93% of respondents said that they felt the service provided by the FRC was value for money, while the rating for the GRO service was 97%.

We also welcome the comments and suggestions that are made on the survey forms as these not only help us to monitor our services but also to focus on areas where improvements can be made. One such area that has been receiving increasing comment is our website. We had already recognised the increasing importance of our website as a communication tool and a new one is currently being developed. Your views and comments are being fed into this project. The new website is expected to be launched in Spring 2004.

A number of comments have also been received regarding the difficulty of getting through to our Call Centre. Actions already taken to improve this include further increasing the number of operators and lines coming into the Call Centre. We also hope to install a new 'message service' in the near future which will allow callers to leave their details so that we can phone back during quiet periods.

One respondent asked why it was necessary to complete the address box on every application in a multiple order placed at the FRC. Despite advances in technology we still require all certificate applications coming from the FRC to be recorded on paper with the relevant contact information.

The paper application is used to track and record each request thereby allowing us to respond to any queries during production. Multiple orders are separated on receipt and allocated based on the type of request, and type and year of event (even events of the same type and year may go to different staff to deal with). It is for these reasons that contact information is required on each application.

Certificate Services Open Days 2003

Each year for the past four years we have seen an increase in interest and attendance at the Certificate Services Open Days in Southport.

Last year was no exception with over 350 people visiting the branch over two days in November 2003. There was a slightly different feel to the event this time. As well as a guided tour of the production areas, visitors were invited to attend an exhibition and encouraged to put their questions to representatives from other areas of GRO including Adoptions and Overseas, and colleagues from The National Archives.

Gwyn Hughes, Implementation Manager for the Registration Review Programme hosted a number of lively talks providing details of the proposed changes to Civil Registration. Visit the ONS website at: www.statistics.gov.uk/registration for more details.

Once again, feedback from the event was very good with 72% of respondents rating the tour as "excellent". One visitor wrote "It has been a privilege to attend the open day, to see how much work, time and effort is involved by staff at the GRO in order to issue my certificates. Please thank all those involved as well as the Family Records Centre, who I know have travelled up from London especially".

The dates for the 2004 Open Days will be published in the next edition of the Family Record.

News From The National Archives, Kew

Naturalisation records on PROCAT

As part of the Citizenship project, all of the descriptions of naturalisations by Secretary of State in record series HO 1/17-176 (covering the years 1844 to 1871) have been loaded onto PROCAT. The descriptions have been input from the printed Indexes to Naturalisations, available among the series lists in the reading rooms at Kew. PROCAT now allows you to search for naturalisations by full name, nationality, certificate number and date of certificate. PROCAT will identify the full document reference for the background papers.

A typical description is as follows:
HO 1/17/37: Naturalisation Papers: Bettelheim, Bernard John, from Hungary. Certificate 37 issued 30 January 1845.

The project has helped to identify cases where background papers appear not to have survived. In carrying out the work, nearly 100 cases of incorrect references were identified in the index and there were three instances where naturalisation papers were located in record series HO 1 but had not been recorded in the index.

The descriptions of naturalisation cases in HO 144 between 1925 and 1930 are already on PROCAT and cases for naturalisation papers in HO 45, covering the years 1872 to 1878, are currently being prepared. Work continues for files in HO 144 from 1879. Additional information from cases after 1878 includes place of residence - usually the town.

Cecil Beaton's Propaganda Photographs 1944

An exhibition at The National Archives, Kew 23 January - 13 March

Cecil Beaton, one of Britain's most celebrated photographers, captured the world's most glamorous men and women on film. In 1944 he was sent to India by the Ministry of Information to photograph day-to-day life and bring a touch of glamour to the Ministry's propaganda campaign about the war in South East Asia.

This free exhibition brings together rarely-seen photographs from his trip, along with original correspondence, documents and propaganda posters, revealing a little-known side of Beaton's work as a photographer.

Behind the scenes tours

Why not take a tour behind the scenes at Kew and see the dark vaults where we keep the nation's secrets? Learn about how documents are selected to become public records, how parchment is conserved and see original documents. Every Saturday 11am & 2pm. Booking is essential and places are limited. To book a tour call 020 8876 3444.

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 to:

FRC-Newsletter@nationalarchives.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