General Chat

This is my hobby - I don't smoke and prefer to drive rather than drink! If I smoked 20 a day then the cost would be £35 - that would get me nearly 180 credits on Scotlands people!!!

I agree OC there is so much free information on the internet - having said that there is nothing like getting your hands on a long awaited certificate and it confirms what you thought .......or throws up yet another mystery to solve!!

Ah yes Kris, but along with rising revenues go rising overheads - more staff, more equipment, more wear and tear etc. Then it all goes quiet again when WDYTYA is finished, and the newbies realise it is not all as easy at looks on TV - what do they do with the spare staff then? In an ideal world, yes, all our information would be free (and so would my ciggies, lol), but speaking as an Oldie researcher, I am STILL gobsmacked that so much IS available free on the Internet - stuff which I had to go miles and beg for, before I found the Internet. OC

I have no quibble with the cost but I would be interested to see the revenue figures with the growth of popularity of genealogy - certainly since the televising of things like WDYTYA. I have been lucky and have hit the jackpot with every certificate that I have ordered or collected.

I would say that anyone who has nine WRONG certs, isn't doing their research properly.(Unless, like me, they have collected them over a number of years, lol) Even if you order from the GRO, as long as you give checking points, then you only pay £3.for a wrong un. If you order from local ROs, mostly you don't pay a penny, if you make the right enquiries first - they are often very helpful in weeding out the 'wrong ones'. OC

Every certificate I have ever bought has been worth every penny. Most of them have led to more questions to be asked, more research to be done. It is not a cheap hobby, but what worthwhile hobby is? I love this addictive hobby ... :-)

has anyone seen how many people have got unwanted certs because of bad registration dates!!!!! and that`s just on this site, one person alone has 63 quids worth. it`s a lot of money to pay when we can`t even get realistic dates etc apart from quarters. sharon

just been on durham site only to be told it`s all going to bishop auckland so are durham losing their jobs!!!!! sharon

The sheer cost of this 'hobby' has been one of the major factors in my giving it up. I think I'll wait until I meet them all face to face, and ask them about themselves, be much easier lol

General Registration is maintained and paid for out of the public purse - our taxes, in other words. Genealogy is a hobby - why should that be paid for out of the public purse? If you were a stamp collector, you wouldn't expect to get them for nothing, or subsidised by taxes, would you? The GRO barely breaks even on the cost of a £7 certs. They have vast archives to maintain, hundreds of staff and machinery which presumably needs maintaining and replacing frequently - ever seen the price of ONE good photocopying machine, let alone 50? The overheads for their storage, buildings etc are phenomenal. Organisations like Ancestry not only have to pay copyright and an agreed cost for something like the 1891 census, say, but they have to have the facilities and equipment to put this on line - how much is a Main Frame computer? Transcribing of many censuses was done by prisoners - they did not get paid, but the prison authorities did. One census was transcribed abroad - Sri Lanka?? - not by volunteers, but by workers in their country - our Government paid for this as a practical act of charity, and a money-saving exercise of course. Yes, £7. seems dear for one small piece of photocopied paper - but it is the hidden costs which make it so expensive. OC

I would imagine very little of it goes directly for Genealogical purposes, but it must be costly to keep these documents in the best possible condition and to preserve them under the right atmoshpere and so on. I always thought that between that and the admin costs of dealing with requests, its not such a bad price really.

Well if you are a scrooge so am I. I have been tring to find out about my dad's time in the army including the Korean war and I have to pay £30 because he and my mum have both passed away. I was also told because they have so many records they might not find anything. Jackie

It would be interesting to find out how much income is generated from the purchase of certificates for genealogical purposes - and where it goes!!!

we all have a right to know where we came from. but why does it cost so much to find out?? it takes 2/3 certificates for each person to find out what we need to know and all at abt 7 quid each. what with 'who do you think you are' so popular shouldn`t something be done about prices to find out 'who we were', from what i can gather most transcribers are volunteers so where does the crazy price come from???? hope a few people might agree with me or am i just a scrooge sharon