[Search for users] [Overall Top Noters] [List of all Conferences] [Download this site]

Conference bgsdev::genealogy

Title:	Roots
Notice:	Note 18 for beginners
Moderator:	BGSDEV::MORRIS

Created:	Tue Mar 23 1993
Last Modified:	Tue Jun 03 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1195
Total number of notes:	11074

1194.0. "The UK Family Records Centre" by CHEFS::16.37.11.45::Herbert () Tue Feb 11 1997 12:21

The Public Record Office Census Rooms in Chancery Lane and St. Catherine's
House (GRO or ONS) are both moving to share a new location.

	The Family Records Centre
	Myddelton Place
     	Myddelton Street
     	Islington
     	London EC1

The PRO will open its services to the public there on 10 March 1997, and 
ONS will open to the public on 1 April 1997.

Myddelton Place is located almost opposite the Sadlers' Wells Theatre and 
a few minutes' walk from Angel underground station on the Northern line.

For further information see :

	http://www.open.gov.uk/pro/prohome.htm

 Paul.

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
1194.1		CHEFS::16.42.64.193::WEGG	Some hard boiled eggs and some nuts	`Wed Feb 12 1997 03:58`	5
	Paul, Does this mean that ST. Catherines House is currently closed, do you know? Ian.
1194.2		CHEFS::16.37.11.49::Herbert		`Fri Feb 14 1997 08:45`	11
	Ian, St. Catherine's House is legally obliged to be always accessible during their normal working hours. The move will take place over the Easter holiday weekend. Quite a feat considering the amount of material to move! I only hope the new location's air conditioning is better than St. Catherine's. It gets a bit iffy in there by lunch time! ;^) Paul.
1194.3		CHEFS::16.42.64.193::WEGG	Some hard boiled eggs and some nuts	`Fri Feb 14 1997 08:55`	6
	Paul, Thanks for the update. I've only ever been to St. Catherines in the winter so haven't been bothered about the air con! Ian.
1194.4		QUICHE::PITT	Alph a ha is better than no VAX!	`Fri Feb 14 1997 09:15`	37
	As far as I understand it, the reading room at Chancery Lane is already closed - much of that material is moving (moved?) to Kew. The Census Room closes on 8th March, and reopens on 10th March at the new site. ONS (SCH as we know it) closes as Paul said, on I think, on 27th March and reopens at the new site on 1st April. It has to be a good move to put the two on the same site. It means that you can flit between the two without wasting valuable time. The pictures I saw of the new building at SCH yesterday (!!!!) look excellent. It is a bright modern building with a lot more space. I picked up a newsletter, and in it there is specific mention of lighting and air conditioning. There will be natural light on all floors - we'll no longer be in the bowels of the building as the Census Room at Chancery Lane has been - but they are also aware of the problems of sunlight, and there are apparently blinds on the windows. The opening hours of the new place are longer - late night ('til 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and all day Saturday). They also have plans to replace existing microfilm readers "after April 1997", including the provision of new reader-printers. There have to be economies of scale resulting from putting the two centres together. That must put off the day when they start charging - they say they have no intention of doing so at present. I also note that PRO are providing estate duty office records (1769-1858) and indexes of death duty registers (1796-1903), various Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills and administrations (1384-1858), non-parochial registers (1567-1858) and miscellaneous foreign returns (1627-1960) on microfilm at the new centre. I presume all these could have been accessed previously at Chancery Lane, but I never found them ... I for one am looking forward to the new centre. The only disadvantage seems to be the location - SCH is very conveniently situated halfway between HHL and Waterloo Station, as a good place to break the walk between the two - we can't go wasting Digital's money by taking the tube now, can we? T
1194.5	Can't find url\	ALFSS2::WATKINS_L		`Thu Feb 20 1997 09:25`	4
	I tried the url and got an error indicating prohome was not on the server. Larry
1194.6		QUICHE::PITT	Alph a ha is better than no VAX!	`Fri Feb 21 1997 07:09`	4
	The URL is correct. I have just accessed it. Note that it ends .htm not .html ... T
1194.7		TGRAPH::WEGG	Some hard boiled eggs and some nuts.	`Tue Apr 15 1997 11:24`	16
	Re .4 >It has to be a good move to put the two on the same site. It means that you can >flit between the two without wasting valuable time. That's a very good point. I visited the FRC last week and got some valuable information from the census returns on the first floor which I was then able to immediately use in the ONS on the ground floor - extremely convenient. The ONS has a lot more space than St.Catherines House. I had never been to Chancery Lane so I don't know how the new Census Search room compares, but there were always plenty of spare viewers during the time I was there (all day last Wednesday). Ian.