April 2010

From Julie Phibbs

Editor of Irish Roots Magazine

Irish Roots magazine, the only magazine entirely dedicated to Irish ancestral research within the entire island of Ireland is now on Facebook. Irish Roots features many articles by Ireland's leading genealogists, tips and tools on how to trace and embrace your Irish ancestry.

To learn more go to www.irishrootsmagazine.com

The Society of Genealogists

The Society of Genealogists Lectures, Courses and Visits for the coming year are many and varied. They happen on Wednesdays and Saturdays. There are some full day courses, half day courses, tutorials of 1.5 hours and lectures of 1 hour. There are also some visits and guided walks. Costs vary from £6 or £4.80 concession for an hour lecture to £30 or £24 concession for a full day. The walks and visits all vary.

For further details go to www.sog.org.uk

From the Imperial War Museum

The U.K. National Inventory of War Memorials is a unique national archive holding comprehensive information, name lists and images of over 60,000 war memorials sited in the U.K. The memorials commemorate both British and foreign service people killed in service from Roman times to the present day. New information is constantly sought and the online database is updated daily.

 Whether you are interested in researching your family history or undertaking academic of commercial research, we can help you make the most of your search.

For more information call 020 7207 9860 / 9863

E-mail : memorials@iwm.org.uk

Or search the data base online at www.ukniwm.org.uk

The U.K. National Inventory of War Memorials is just one of the Imperial War Museum's archives you can access.

To find out more about the collections visit www.iwmcollections.org.uk/postcards With additions being made every day, Collections Online is fast becoming the first port of call to explore war-related archives on people, places, objects or events since 1914.

The GRO and Local Registration Services

The Federation has received advanced notification of increased fees which will be coming into force from 6th April 2010 for people ordering birth, marriage and death certificates from the GRO

The standard fee will rise from £7.00 to £9.25. This is an increase of just over 32%.

The good news is that this standard rate will also apply where the reference is not known or where the order is NOT placed online; representing a reduction in the fee.

Full details can be seen in the press release at www.ips.gov.uk/cps/rde/xchg/ips_live/hs.xsl/1569.htm

The fee for all priority orders will become £23.40. The fee for a certificate issued by a Superintendent Registrar will increase from £7.00 to £9.00. Details of other fees to be charged by the Local Registration Service are contained in the press release referred to above.

Roger Lewry (FFHS Archives Liaison) continues

In the light of recent comments about additional administration fees being charged by some local offices, it is strange that the new fee of £9.00 is less than the new fee to be charged by the GRO. I have heard from one Registration Service Manager explaining the need for charging more than the current fee of £7.00. He wrote "The arrangement of records at local offices is very different to those of GRO. For instance the GRO ref is of no use. Similarly marriage certificate requests involve searching in each Church - there are no centralised indexes. Many requests (often rambling) are accompanied by the usual (must be son of) which means after an extensive search, we are unable to issue the certificate, and return the fee, despite considerable time being wasted". I suspect we have not heard the last about this.