Digitised ancestry is delayed until further notice
21st August 2008
Half finished, and disappointing a lot of genealogists, the website that would have had 250 million records of births, marriages and deaths spanning over 71 years will not be completed in the near future.
The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) has terminated its contract with preferred supplier, Siemens, due to the length of time it was taking to complete. It has also become apparent that many birth and death records have gone missing.
Hundreds of thousands of people would no doubt have used this website, finding out about their ancestral history and what happened to distant relatives in the 19th Century. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any plans to complete the half finished work started by Siemens, especially as some records have disappeared.
Let’s hope that this website can be completed at some point, due to the wealth of information that will be available to anybody, anywhere, to find out where they came from.
