Criticism of Genealogy Service Fees
The Irish Family History Association’s database of genealogical records officially launched on 12 March 2008. As regular readers will know, these records have been going live county by county over the last few months. The database contains 8.6 million records obtained from various archives.
The launch is the culmination of a project which originally commenced 18 years ago, with data being indexed and input by trainees and staff of FÁS (Foras Áiseanna Saothair - the Irish National Training and Emplopyment Authority) as part of a programme for the unemployed.
Although generally the digitisation of records is to be welcomed, the main reaction among researchers polled has been one of shock at the cost of €10 to view each record. There is also some concern around the accuracy of the transcriptions, although in a Parliamentary Debate concerning the Irish Family History Foundation in 2007 the inaccuracy rate was given as 1.8%.
An article by Stephen Collins of the Irish Times dated 13th March 2008 focuses on the reaction from Fine Gael spokeswoman for Arts, Sports and Tourism, Olivia Mitchell, who said she found this charge ‘regrettable’ and called for the information to be given to the National Archives as part of its public service.
‘The gathering and digitisation of the parish records was done at public expense and it was always envisaged that this kind of public information should be made freely available to the public,’ said Ms Mitchell. ‘It is a complete break with tradition and practice that an important aspect of our national archives should be subject to a charge. We have prided ourselves on free access to our archives, to our national museums and to the National Gallery.’
Read this article in full on CIGO’s website.
It has been suggested on various genealogy forums that anyone wanting to support Olivia Mitchell in her call for genealogical information to be free to all researchers should write to her. The relevant contact details are posted in a number of Rootsweb discussion groups.
Do you have a view on this? If so, please add your comments below.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Re. IFHF charges.
Under what legal basis do the county family history centres function? Are they now private registered companies, charities, or educational establishments? Does the government still have any control over them?
It seems that they were originally funded by the taxpayer to transcribe and digitise local records in each county. They were then allowed (officially or unofficially) to use these records to carry out paid genealogical research. Some of this research was excellent, but there have been justified complaints lodged in some cases.
The resulting searchable databases are being put on line. Was this sanctioned by governmant ?
Now the charges!
The state-funded databases should have been handed over to the state when they were completed. The National Archives could have then made them available in the same way as they are making the two surviving censuses. When the state pays a contractor to build a bridge, does the contractor then own the bridge?
10 euro a shot can mount up to a lot of money if you are researching families with common surnames. The search only tells you a year and county (or half county) — certainly no townland. A search can easily turn up 20 records and it will cost 200 euro to check them all out. The civil registry search facility in the Irish Life Centre charges 2 euro for a five-year search and 4 euro for a photocopy of the register. (The photocopy charge jumped from 2 to 4 euro overnight - 100%) On this basis, and considering that the whole on-line process is virtually automatic, 10 euro is certainly excessive. IFHF would make more by charging less. However their legal right to charge anything at all should be scrutinised.
March 19th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I am horrified at the charges. As someone who has tried in vain to get access to some data, in particular in Co Clare and Co Kilkenny and who has spent hours peering at poor images in the National Library to be asked to pay anything at all for access to the database is disgusting. I did ask the Foundation what was the overlap with the Townsend St service, where you have to fill in a paper form to get data which is computerised. This was the answer….
“No we do not duplicate what is done by the GRO. The GRO holds civil records of births, deaths and marriages from 1864 onwards; 1845 for C of I marriages.
Our database is comprised mainly of church records, the bulk of these are Catholic. These records were only previously available via county genealogy centres on a commissioned research basis; by visiting local parishes and having a manual search done or by searching the microfilmed copies of the parish registers in the National Library and Archives…..”
So they do duplicate material in the NL, and there fore in the public domain.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:16 am
I am very glad to have these records available but do think the fees extremely high for information received. In looking for marriage information I was able to find the correct marriage along with the exact date and place…but.. absolutely no other information… no mention of parents names or anything else.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I have tried searching for individuals who I know to be listed on the records of a parish which the IFHF lists as being available online. Out of four individuals I only found one in their database.