Genealogy Chat

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Now that GR are selling credits, and making more and more records available, do you think they will stop us from offering lookups? Lots of people offer lookups for BMD indexes and 1901 census. GR are surely not going to allow ‘freebies’ when they could be getting more money themselves? Especially now we've been invaded again with even more adverts! What do you reckon? Mandy :)

To be honest Mandy, its always surprised me they havent done it already - I mean they could be on dodgey ground with ancestry, couldnt they?

Hi Heather, yes you're right about Ancestry. In fact, it was that thought that prompted me to wonder about GR's records. Mandy :)

Perhaps more people on here join Ancestry when they see what can be found. Heather

dont give them ideas! I guess they could try but what would GR be without the 'help' factor' ...and if you cant help by looking up , what can you do??

I think that is the crux Jess - lets be honest without all the help people on here give to others then the old Success Board would be pretty bare. Heather, Im sure that is also a pointer - ancestry must be aware - to be honest, thats why I often give them a plug - if they are getting more members because of look ups - and I believe in the majority of genuine new researchers this would be the case - then it is basically cheap publicity for them.

it is illegal to copy and paste info from Ancestry to another wesite, if you do this on root's chat your reply gets deletated straight away and you are warned not to do it again, its only this site that allows you to break the law, every reply on nearly always starts with view results, which is a dead give away, there is no stoping you doing a look up, but your answer should be a transcript of ancestrys result, not a copy, which is illegal

Jess & Heather, I totally agree with you. Part of the satisfaction is giving and receiving help, although I'm sure that lookups would still get through on the 'black market'! Just thought that seeing GR is now part of a much bigger, pots-of-money-making corporation, they might try to stamp out freebies. Mandy :)

Why are GR charging to see BMD records which are free on Ancestry?! Cheers, Horatia

Horatia The only reason I can think of is ... to make more money! Mandy :)

I know I was chatting to one of the clerks in the Bank recently about family trees and stuff (notice how it comes up with every conversation you have?) and she was getting very enthusiastic, so I said, first thing to do is join GR. So next time I see her, asked if she joined GR. She said she had but had spent £20 on the 'records' and hadnt really found much. These newbies see that Search the Records link and not knowing any better use it thinking they will produce a family tree in hours.

Heather Quite agree - especially as their payable records advert is in a much more prominent position than their 'Getting Started' section! I've always agreed with Nell that their information for new members should be much more visible. £20??? Poor thing, she could have had 1/3 of a year's Ancestry sub for that! Mandy :)

GR have never been about caring and sharing. If you stumble by chance on the 1901 site, you would not think any other census existed. There is no link to the National Archives, just a dead one to the now defunct Public Records Office. I queried this and was told it would be amended, but of course they wouldn't wish to gratuitously advertise another source of the 1901 census. GR refuse to take responsibility for the way we break the law. As Heather says, Ancestry profit from us in the long run, so they are not bothered. It is the smaller organisations who don't have Ancestry's clout that suffer. They have had to approach individuals. How GR move forwards is anyone's guess. The databases they seem to be acquiring are the bargain basement ones. Qinetiq wanted to offload 1901 and the bmds will be superceded within a very few years. ITV are only interested in money. If they found that the majority of paying members (and we have no idea what proportion of the membership that is) never visited these boards, then they probably wouldn't bother to employ a moderator, but simply close the boards down.

Nudging to see what the evening crew think! Mandy :)