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I think that you're all missing the point of this petition, and Jay's reason for posting the link to it here. As I understand it, the petition is to make the actual registers available to the public - not just the indexes, which as you have all pointed out, are already available online in some form at least.
Yes it would be great if the actual registers were available - presumably along the lines of the Scottish registers which can be viewed (at a price) on ScotlandsPeople. For England/Wales to do the same however would require a change in the law, which is what this petition is requesting.
Whilst it would be great if this did happen, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it. Apart from the law change, the sheer number of BMD events that would require digitising and putting online is immense. In fact the GRO did have a project to do this (DOVE) but I believe that has now been canned due to "technical difficulties" (which is presumably government speak for "too costly"). A shame, as part of that project was a re-indexing of BMD's right back to 1837 to include MMN on births, spouse surname on marriages and age on deaths. Alas it was not to be, however!
And even if it did happen in the future, you most certainly won't get free access - though presumably the cost could be a little lower than the current £7 if the images were available for download rather than issuing a formal certificate. There would still be huge costs involved though, which would have to be recovered from the end users (ie. us!).
Richard
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I think the government has better things to spend tax payers money on.
The transcriptions are being done for free sites by some fab volunteers, but unless they sat there going through each cert individually to get the mother maiden name, which would take forever the information avlaible is the best you are going to get.
Or you could actually put some leg work in and go and look at them at the nearest library that holds the microfiche.
I think we are lucky to have access to what we have access to for free, sorry knowing your family history is not a right or really even nesscary, its just an enjoyable pastime, espcially if you are looking for people who show on the BMD's between 1837-1908.
Jayfish I have to ask how old are you?,
are you part of the 'google' generation, I'm in my mid twenties and use to having the answers at the touch of a button, but having done a history degree I also appreciate a lot of informations much harder to find and while it would have made some parts of my degree easier it wasn't realisitic for me to expect everything I want to look at to be there realidy avaible, espically when our pesky ancestors didn't catelogue their documents as they were produced just incase someone serveral decades later wanted to check them.
I do have sympathy for those researching common names, I have one in my tree but know I either have to do some digging to find other facts that will narrow down the certs I have to order or write off that branch for now.
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A good idea in theory.
However, it would be a massive, expensive project, and I cannot see the government agreeing to it.
Regarding your comments, the mother's maiden name is only given in the GRO BMD registrations after 1911, as has been said - that is wherever one looks: free BMD, ancestry / find my past websites or fiches or film at records offices or libraries.
Also, the age of a person in death registrations is given after, I believe, 1868.
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Sorry if I also appear thick, but the websites that offer this facility are currently wading through the records to increase access online bit by bit. We have to be patient. I am not aware that they are forbidden from publishing this information, it just takes time.
Margaret
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The earlier years of the birth records on very many of the free sites don`t give the maiden name of the mother.
Especially when looking for a common name it can prove expensive sending for certificates which then turn out to be the wrong ones.
The death records on the free sites are just names and the quarter and again can turn out to be the wrong one.
Jay
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This petition is on the No 10 Downing Street website to lobby for open access to the BMD records 1837 – 1908.
This would be such a huge help to those of us researching our family trees in ordering the correct certificate.
Please sign the petition - either copy address or paste into browser and
forward the address to as many other people as possible.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/OpenBMDrecords/
Jay
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