Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all! We have been experiencing an issue on site where threads have been missing the latest postings. The platform host Vanilla are working on this issue. A workaround that has been used by some is to navigate back from 1 to 10+ pages to re-sync the thread and this will then show the latest posts. Thanks, Mike.
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Updated GRO

123578

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,777 ✭✭✭shanew


    desbrook wrote: »
    How much did the project cost?

    ( lights blue touchpaper and runs!)

    The index was already created and available for internal use by the GRO, so should only have been IT costs


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 716 ✭✭✭CassieManson


    Jellybaby1 wrote: »
    I'm still nervous, but pleased to see the message just now:

    "Civil Records Search temporarily unavailable - further update will be provided"

    I don't think the message has changed at all since last Friday. And there have been no futher updates. Not too hopeful about the word "temporarily".


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    I really hoped you wouldn't say that! :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 842 ✭✭✭pjproby


    At the very least, one of them, should issue a comprehensive statement, explaining the issue.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,708 ✭✭✭Waitsian


    http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2014/07/latest-on-irishgenealogyie-bmd-indexes.html


    Nothing new really but at least she's trying to get answers. As was stated previously we shouldn't have to go looking for update news, someone should issue a clarifying statement.


    Edit: I see RootsIreland are soon to have a shiny new website. I don't suppose there's any chance they can stop ripping off their customers to go along with it? :rolleyes:


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 10,912 Mod ✭✭✭✭Ponster


    mod9maple wrote: »

    Edit: I see RootsIreland are soon to have a shiny new website. I don't suppose there's any chance they can stop ripping off their customers to go along with it? :rolleyes:


    €5 for an instant cert compared to €4 + fax for one that you'll have to wait over a week for isn't take bad IMHO. If you purchase €50 credit then each cert works out at about €2.80


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,672 Mod ✭✭✭✭pinkypinky


    Ponster wrote: »
    €5 for an instant cert compared to €4 + fax for one that you'll have to wait over a week for isn't take bad IMHO. If you purchase €50 credit then each cert works out at about €2.80

    Well that would be fine if it was a digital copy of the cert and not an unverifiable transcript.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,708 ✭✭✭Waitsian


    Ponster wrote: »
    €5 for an instant cert compared to €4 + fax for one that you'll have to wait over a week for isn't take bad IMHO. If you purchase €50 credit then each cert works out at about €2.80


    Their search facility for church records leaves a lot to be desired and means you're shooting in the dark looking for records, and end up wasting money on certs you don't want.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,777 ✭✭✭shanew


    you can often narrow down a lot of detail on the RootsIreland Index without having to pay for a full transcript - e.g. the denomination/parish or district, parents names on RC baptisms etc.


  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,422 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Having paid for a transcript on Roots I see that is only available for a limited time.
    No other website I know of does that.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71 ✭✭VicWynne


    It's yet another thing that really bugs me about RootsIreland... Just make sure you save it - I usually print it to a pdf file...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 716 ✭✭✭CassieManson


    pjproby wrote: »
    At the very least, one of them, should issue a comprehensive statement, explaining the issue.

    Interesting letter in the Irish Times on Saturday from the Press Office of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht


    Provides some clarification on the issues


    www.irishtimes.com/debate/letters/genealogy-and-protecting-data-1.1878388


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    But had that editorial not been published in the first place on the 23rd July, the Department would still have remained silent. Still no explanation on the website.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    J Grenham has a piece in today's IT


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,204 ✭✭✭jos28


    Very unhappy about losing the civil records :mad:
    I'm delighted I grabbed what I could while we still had access.

    I managed to find a birth record for my GG Grandfather but unfortunately didn't keep the details so I can order the cert. Any kind soul able to help me find details for Michael Evans born Dublin 1881 ? Parents are James and Kate. He is not showing up in the Church records


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 37 Rox_88


    jos28 wrote: »
    Very unhappy about losing the civil records :mad:
    I'm delighted I grabbed what I could while we still had access.

    I managed to find a birth record for my GG Grandfather but unfortunately didn't keep the details so I can order the cert. Any kind soul able to help me find details for Michael Evans born Dublin 1881 ? Parents are James and Kate. He is not showing up in the Church records

    This is the only one I can find:

    First Name Michael
    Last Name Evans
    Year 1881
    Registered Quarter/Year Jan - Mar 1881
    Registration District Dublin North
    Volume 2
    Page 533


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,204 ✭✭✭jos28


    Thanks a million Rox. I suspect that might be this Michael Evans which unfortunately not the one I am looking for. I suppose it's worth ordering the cert either way

    http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details/73e4470199222


  • Registered Users Posts: 37 Rox_88


    I noticed when I searched that there was also a death record for Michael Evans b.1881, d.1883 in North Dublin so more than likely the same child and definitely not your GG Grandfather :/


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,204 ✭✭✭jos28


    Rox_88 wrote: »
    I noticed when I searched that there was also a death record for Michael Evans b.1881, d.1883 in North Dublin so more than likely the same child and definitely not your GG Grandfather :/

    Great detective work there Rox and much appreciated. Good news for me but certainly not for the poor child. Thanks for all your help


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,708 ✭✭✭Waitsian


    Has there still been no official government statement as regards the online indexes? What the heck are they doing? :confused:


  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,422 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Now, now! At least they're being consistent.:(

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    Consistently silent!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Hermy wrote: »
    Now, now! At least they're being consistent.:(

    Yes, and will remain consistent until they return from holidays in mid September.:rolleyes:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    Oh flip!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,204 ✭✭✭jos28


    This wait is so annoying. It's like giving a child a toy on Christmas Day and taking it back on Stephen's Day !
    There we were, all having fun filling in the gaps in our trees and now - nothing !
    Can they at least put the database back online with date restrictions until they sort the mess out.
    Any ideas who we could bombard with emails/letters to get it moving again ?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    I skimmed through what Grenham wote - it appears it is a Data Protection issue so it will involve that office and from the Govt side the Attorney General's office, along with legions of civil servants and 'experts'. A$$ covering at its worst, at a time when the country is trying to develop a genealogical tourist industry.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,204 ✭✭✭jos28


    I have a contact in the Data Protection Office, must make a phone call to see what's happening ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    I skimmed through what Grenham wote - it appears it is a Data Protection issue so it will involve that office and from the Govt side the Attorney General's office, along with legions of civil servants and 'experts'. A$$ covering at its worst, at a time when the country is trying to develop a genealogical tourist industry.

    Whoda guessed!


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,422 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    jos28 wrote: »
    This wait is so annoying. It's like giving a child a toy on Christmas Day and taking it back on Stephen's Day...

    It's more like telling a child a week before Christmas that they might get a toy sometime soon and then months and months and months pass before the toy appears suddenly only to disappear again just as suddenly.

    The worst thing about it is that I had all this information on screen and I didn't think to save some of my searches. Quite a number of the surnames I'm researching are not that common so it would have been practical to do so.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    Hermy wrote: »
    It's more like telling a child a week before Christmas that they might get a toy sometime soon and then months and months and months pass before the toy appears suddenly only to disappear again just as suddenly...

    Now just what do you think that child would do under those circumstances? Scream the house down! Lets! Who should we write (scream) to then? Which department, minister, whatever? Oh yeah, they're all on their holidays now, aren't they, so the child cools down in a few months! :mad:


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,204 ✭✭✭jos28


    Hermy wrote: »

    The worst thing about it is that I had all this information on screen and I didn't think to save some of my searches. Quite a number of the surnames I'm researching are not that common so it would have been practical to do so.

    Me too :mad:
    I just saved the URLS and a fat lot of good they are now !


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,422 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Jellybaby1 wrote: »
    ...so the child cools down in a few months! :mad:

    Except we still have those awful Captcha's to remind us of the whole mess!

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,777 ✭✭✭shanew


    there's a small plus side to the changes that I dont think was mentioned, I think it's recent - they modified the image screens so that it's easier to 'browse' the register images. They previous images were direct pdf links so you had to modify the url to browse to see previous/next pages, or look for the intro pages in the register, now it's easier. They copied my method for browsing directories etc...!!

    316744.jpg


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 716 ✭✭✭CassieManson


    shanew wrote: »
    there's a small plus side to the changes that I dont think was mentioned, I think it's recent - they modified the image screens so that it's easier to 'browse' the register images. They previous images were direct pdf links so you had to modify the url to browse to see previous/next pages, or look for the intro pages in the register, now it's easier. They copied my method for browsing directories etc...!!

    316744.jpg

    Wow did not spot that, that is brilliant! Thanks for pointing it out.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,708 ✭✭✭Waitsian


    Well yeah that is good, but why only images for Dublin, and none for Kerry? very frustrating. The sooner that new bill gets through the better.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 337 ✭✭blue banana


    mod9maple wrote: »
    Well yeah that is good, but why only images for Dublin, and none for Kerry? very frustrating. The sooner that new bill gets through the better.

    My understanding of this, is that the Dept of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht needed to purchase the microfilms from the NLI in order to computerise the records, for example, for Dublin and Cork & Ross. I don't think they obtained the microfilms for the Diocese of Kerry as these records had already been indexed and computerised by a FÁS project in Killarney and therefore were not computerised from microfilm in Bangladesh like most of the other records on irishgenealogy.ie. Evidence that microfilm was not used for Kerry is also clear by the fact that the records for some Kerry parishes go up to 1910/1911, much later than the 1880 date of the microfilms.

    I don't know if the Department ever intend on making the microfilm images available for Kerry.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    Every time I see a new post in here I think its good news about the civil records! :(


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 716 ✭✭✭CassieManson


    Jellybaby1 wrote: »
    Every time I see a new post in here I think its good news about the civil records! :(

    Me too! Obviously no "quick fix" on the cards!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,836 ✭✭✭BigCon


    Any news on this? Surely it can't take that long to edit the site so that only searches before 1914 show up?


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,708 ✭✭✭Waitsian


    BigCon wrote: »
    Any news on this? Surely it can't take that long to edit the site so that only searches before 1914 show up?


    Aren't all the decision makers on their hols?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,836 ✭✭✭BigCon


    mod9maple wrote: »
    Aren't all the decision makers on their hols?

    For a month?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    Or more!


  • Registered Users Posts: 62 ✭✭rxan90


    Words can't even describe how saddened I am that they took all that away before I even had a chance to know about it! How useful it would have been, up to the present day (!) to fill in the blanks on my tree. I can only hope that by some miracle, this commissioner will sod off and let the records return FULLY and uncensored back to where they belong. Grrrrr.


  • Registered Users Posts: 62 ✭✭rxan90


    Actually, why IS it a problem that it lists births deaths and marriages up to the present day in the first place? I noticed that on the ITV show 'Long Lost Family', the researches are able to go somewhere and type names of people who are very much (usually) alive and well and find the records. Why is this not a problem in the UK but IS here? Billy Hawkes I hate, hate, HATE you!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 683 ✭✭✭KildareFan


    It's seen as a data protection issue. A lot of banks & insurance companies use your mother's maiden name and your date of birth for security questions. If these details become readily available, they'll have to start asking questions with answers which are more difficult to find out - like what's the name of your first dog, or your favourite teacher, or the result you got in Irish in the leaving cert or whatever...

    I'm lamenting that I didn't jump faster when all the information was out there.


  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,422 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    I do wonder why it is that Ancestry can provide UK birth, marriage and death records up to about 2005 but we can't do the same. But I don't blame Billy Hawkes for any of this - he is just doing his job. The blame lies solely with those at irishgenealogy.ie who didn't do their homework before putting up the records.

    But I remain as frustrated as the rest at the absence of these records, as when presented as they were online they allowed me to make findings that would have been nigh on impossible by just visiting the GRO in Werburgh Street.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Billy Hawkes has been a career civil servant and in fairness is one of the very best from that area. He is covering Data Comm’s / taxpayers’ collective a$$.

    Simply, the law requires considerable protection of personal data and data holders & processors owe a duty of care to data subjects. Hawkes is just doing his job before somebody with a notion and a hungry solicitor issues proceedings for ‘injury’. E.g. reputational damage and mental distress. We have already seen proceedings under DP against the State to halt publication of details in ‘wills’ held in the Probate Office, the outcome of which closed off much of that info except to the direct beneficiaries.

    My GUESS is that the Data C saw / were told about a potential data breach and took pre-emptive action and/or on the advice of the Attorney General pulled the plug. Will the decision be reversed soon? No. It will take considerable political support to do it properly (possibly legislation) or a bad outcome short-cut might be to implement the 100 year rule, as in the Census.

    The fact that hard copy personal data remains available in the GRO is an example of the total lack of joined-up thinking at State level. However, that and the fact that much of the information is already in the public domain (e.g. BMDs in newspapers) could/should be used in the decision process. But, still stuck with lots of useless urls, I'm not holding my breath.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 470 ✭✭CeannRua


    Billy Hawkes has been a career civil servant and in fairness is one of the very best from that area. He is covering Data Comm’s / taxpayers’ collective a$$.

    Simply, the law requires considerable protection of personal data and data holders & processors owe a duty of care to data subjects. Hawkes is just doing his job before somebody with a notion and a hungry solicitor issues proceedings for ‘injury’. E.g. reputational damage and mental distress. We have already seen proceedings under DP against the State to halt publication of details in ‘wills’ held in the Probate Office, the outcome of which closed off much of that info except to the direct beneficiaries.

    My GUESS is that the Data C saw / were told about a potential data breach and took pre-emptive action and/or on the advice of the Attorney General pulled the plug. Will the decision be reversed soon? No. It will take considerable political support to do it properly (possibly legislation) or a bad outcome short-cut might be to implement the 100 year rule, as in the Census.

    The fact that hard copy personal data remains available in the GRO is an example of the total lack of joined-up thinking at State level. However, that and the fact that much of the information is already in the public domain (e.g. BMDs in newspapers) could/should be used in the decision process. But, still stuck with lots of useless urls, I'm not holding my breath.


    Identity theft is probably a greater danger than reputational damage or mental distress etc. Using the records that were online, it was easy to plot whole families with minimal information. I don't think it's lack of joined-up thinking that's the big issue here; it's that BMD records have long been public records by legislation. There's a difference between BMD records in newspapers and their availability from the GRO in that named individuals themselves are putting in the newspaper notices.

    I'm probably one of the few here that think this but I don't agree with the availability online of recent information, or that BMD records should be public records. Australia has restrictions in place for these types of records. Seems more appropriate in this day and age, than a free for all: http://genealogy.about.com/od/vital_records/p/australia.htm


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 69,542 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Any organisation still using mother's maiden name or DOB as security features needs to be severely dealt with by the DPC primarily because it has never been secure information.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    CeannRua wrote: »
    Identity theft is probably a greater danger than reputational damage or mental distress etc.

    IMO identity theft from GRO data is not an issue because the data available is not sufficient and that type of info is more readily available elsewhere. How could the State get the CLDS to take down my (or your) data from a server located in Utah? Add the fact that the records in the GRO are nothing compared to what is more widely available on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites.
    It’s all changed nowadays, anything financial requires photo ID,up-to-date proofs of residence from utilities companies, etc., mainly because of anti-moneylaundering rules. For travel the order of the day is biometrics, smartchip passports driven by agencies such as Homeland Security.
    Mother’s maiden name, (like first dog/teacher/car’s name, etc.) are memory jogs to double-check an existing email address to reset a password.


  • Advertisement
Advertisement