Genealogy Chat

Access to the census is to be moved entirely to Kew, and once the digitisation of GRO's indexes are complete the BMD indexes will become redundant. The end of an era is approaching.

The National Archives to move its Family Records Centre staff and services to Kew The National Archives and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today made a joint announcement about the provision of services to family historians. As part of a review of strategy, which has focused on the huge changes in information management over the last 10 years, The National Archives is announcing its intention to move its Family Records Centre (FRC) staff and services to Kew from their current location at Myddelton Street, Islington, by the end of 2008. The National Archives and ONS have for some time managed the FRC as a joint operation in Myddelton Street, Islington. Users can access historic census returns in The National Archives part of the Centre and establish basic details of births, deaths and marriages in the indexes maintained by ONS prior to ordering copies of relevant certificates. ONS has an extensive project in hand to digitise registration records and modernise other aspects of service provision, but has not yet made data and documents available online to the same extent as The National Archives. Over the coming months ONS will be reviewing its future requirements for services at FRC in the light of this project and The National Archives' plans to relocate its service to Kew. The review will be carried out in close collaboration with The National Archives to ensure that service delivery by the two organisations continues to be as closely aligned as possible. James Strachan, Director of Public Services and Marketing for The National Archives, said: 'We have already made most of our material housed at the FRC available online. We remain committed to providing high-quality services to family historians, and are therefore planning to develop new online services that reflect customers' needs, and to integrate FRC onsite services at Kew during 2008. We will retain a dedicated family history service, and retain the jobs of our FRC staff in the new service at Kew.' Peter Murphy, Director of Registration Services at ONS, said: 'The hard copy indexes of birth, death and marriage registration, which are available at the FRC, remain for now the resource enabling the Registrar General to meet her statutory obligation to make indexes available to the public. Clearly advances in technology now permit other approaches to providing public access and that is what our review will be concentrating on. We will work closely with National Archives colleagues in conducting the review and hope to be able to reveal its main conclusions by the autumn of this year.'

Don't be silly, Christine! The fact that the FRC is spitting distance from LMA and a healthy walk from either SoG or Holborn (wills) is irrelevant. Mind you, when the new BMD index is available, I think it will mean instant access to certificates!

Christine, I think cutting costs in being able to run only one building instead of two was more important than our convenience! Cheers, Horatia

I guess they'll get a good price on the building by relocating to Kew, but it would be better for me if the relocation had been the other way round!! Kat

Yes, FRC (lovely building) is closer to me than Kew but the area around the FRC is rather dismal (IMHO). Rather run down and dirty. Cheers, Horatia

I've seen this coming for a while I'm afraid. With all the censuses and the BMD indexes available online, what did it offer that justified keeping it open? (But I'll miss having lunch at the pie and mash shop in Exmouth Market.) Andrew.

What will they do with the ''redundant'' GRO index books, once the FRC has closed and the GRO have digitised their new indexes??? I want two for weightlifting purposes! Merry