13 October 2010

Ancestry London, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812 Updated?

On there list of "Genealogy Databases Posted or Updated Recently" Ancestry have posted London, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812. Naturally I was interested, and also intrigued because although it wasn't marked as updated I was pretty certain I'd seen the title before. Checking the card catalog it indicates the database was added on 14/09/2009 and updated on 11/02/2010.

I called the person at the 1-800 number who, although polite, knew nothing more about it than I did. When databases are updated it would be helpful to know the number of new entries. Is the update enough to make it worthwhile undertaking a new search on that database? The helpline person undertook to pass along the suggestion.
The help file on this database also needs revision as it includes the information "Names in these records have not yet been indexed." which is clearly not the case.

UPDATE
An Ancestry press release on this database is at:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5ioWpuLL4M7UrC5u8AKBQWgP1TGlg?docId=N0225491286877723393A

3 comments:

Caroline Gurney said...

Ancestry.co.uk posted this status message on Facebook earlier today: "Tune into BBC Radio York (103.7) at 11.40am to hear Tony Robinson talking about our new London Parish records, online today for the first time ever." It would indeed be helpful if they explained what the new element is.

Caroline Gurney said...

It looks like they have indexed "All London, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812", which previously were unindexed but available for browsing. Wow, what a fantastic new resource!

Unknown said...

I emailed Ancestry many months ago with the same concern. Although the databases are labelled "updated", they do not say what information has been added and we therefore must choose whether or not to spend time searching or browsing through it again and again. Their response was that concerns are dealt with on the basis that the issue with the most complaints gets dealt with first.