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Archiver > SOG-UK > 2009-02 > 1235015422


From: John Addis-Smith <>
Subject: [SOG-UK] Family History Online Closure - Millions of Online RecordsDisappearing!
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:50:22 +0000


As you may be aware Family History Online (FHO) is closing on 2 March
2009. Many of the records hosted on that site have been transferred
to FindMyPast (FMP), but many have not . . .

>From my admittedly cursory inquiries I estimate that millions of
online records that have been hosted on Family History Online are NOT
moving immediately to FindMyPast and will disappear and not be
available online in the near future. Of course manual searches of
these records will usually still be available from the contributing
Family History Societies and other contributors, and no doubt some are
or will be placed online on other sites eventually.

For example, I have been told that the BMSGH Marriage Indexes for
Birmingham (80k), Staffordshire (285k) and Worcestershire (156k) will
not be online anywhere after 2 March.

I do not know how many last minute transfers to FMP will take place in
the next couple of weeks, but comparing the current FMP and FHO lists
I find the following disappearing:

Baptisms
-------------
Bucks 126k
Hants 238k
Sussex 298k
Yorks (Morley and Wakefield) 82k

Total: 744k

Marriages
-------------
Berks 57k
Brecon 8k
Bucks 32k
Herefs 103k
Leics 26k
Radnor 4k
Staffs 285k
Warks (Greater Birmingham) 80k
Worcs 156k

Total: 751k

Some MIs have recently been added to FMP (and are included in the
Burial Searches, though this is not stated explicitly as far as I
could find), but the announcement did not include the following on
FHO:

Memorial Inscriptions
------------------------------
Berks (Earley) 3k
Cornwall 306K
Durham (incl. Cleveland) 56k
Norfolk (mid Norfolk) 6k
Notts (Basford Cemetery) 4k
Yorks (Cleveland) 97k

Total: 472k

Other Records
--------------------
And then there are the other records indexed on FHO and not currently
on FMP, such as the larger ones:
Glam School Admission Registers 29k
Lincolnshire Cemetery Registers 64k ?
Lincolnshire Workhouse Deaths 10k ?
Lincolnshire Settlement Certificates 5k
Northants and Rutland Probate Index 87k
Shropshire Quarter Sessions Index 400k
Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Wills Index 31k
Suffolk Freemen of Ipswich 7k
Sussex Billinghurst Land Tax 9k
Wiltshire Removal orders 21k
Wiltshire Quarter Sessions 60k
Wiltshire Salisbury Infirmary Admissions and Discharges 104k

Total: 827K

So around 2.8 million records are disappearing from online access on 2
March . . .

I think that the FFHS has a duty to Family Historians to publicise on
both its FHO and FFHS web sites a full list of those data sets that
are disappearing from FHO and are not currently on FMP with some
indication where possible about whether they are or will be available
online anywhere else. If they don't know the answer to the latter
then they ought to do their best in find out from their FHS contacts .
. .


Cheers, John


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