TNA images

[Thunder]

You can now, according to TNA's article of today, download images up from a limit of 50 to 100. This seems, to me, to be against the rule that Treasury expect TNA to recover the full cost, so why do they need to charge at all?.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/abo ... us-update/

[jonwarrn]

Tis a pity they haven't allowed FamilySearch to open the films of other records at TNA for us to view at home while they are closed. Why is this not possible?
We can download PCC wills for free.
Why can't we see the act books to wills and administrations?
The LDS have filmed them.
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/237529

For the late period ones, there are the death duty registers. Not always a treasure trove, I admit, but nice to have a look!
The registers are in IR26, and those to 1857 are viewed on microfilm, but not on their website "This record has not been digitised and cannot be downloaded" (some non PCC will DDRs are free on TNA for a limited range of years)
The indexes in IR27 are not only on findmypast, but they can also be viewed for free on TNA
i.e.
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov. ... /C15637123

FamilySearch have the IR26 microfilms, i.e.
Death duty register for wills in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1796-1811; and administrations, 1796-1857 and indexes
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/522838

Death duty register for wills in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and country courts, 1812-1857
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/614554

So why have they not let FS open up the films during this period?
Must be other stuff at Kew that the LDS have filmed that is not on the pay sites, and is currently inaccessible?

[AdrianBruce]

I suspect that there's a whole list of issues here.

Re the "Act books to wills and administrations", for instance. I assume that no commercial provider has these. That being so, it's not remotely clear to me why FS have blocked off access - unless they believe that TNA normally supply the images for cash through TNA Discovery. Which apparently, if I understand things, they don't. I have seen several other collections and films where it's not clear why FS have blocked access - some of the India Office Records, for instance. I suspect that FS have simply said, "All IOR stuff is accessed through FindMyPast so we can't show these." Yet the films in question are not on FMP. That suggests to me that there are one or two issues:
- The films were supposed to be loaded into FMP but have fallen through their processes
and / or
- FS shouldn't have blocked off the access in the first place.

Frankly, I suspect that FS are nothing like nimble enough to act on your suggestion, even if TNA agreed - and it shouldn't be up to them to take the initiative, I believe. I doubt FS have a proper configuration management system - it's probably stacks of emails and documents that can't easily be sorted through - so I doubt FS could decide what to ask for either, nor how to switch access on or off.

[jonwarrn]

Thanks Adrian. I hadn't thought much of FS's management system , though I have sometimes wondered whether they have much idea themselves about which films are open and which are not (or even why sometimes!)
No doubt it was wishful thinking on my part. FS do sometimes put a notice up on the website telling us that they can't open up extra records during the current pandemic, due to contractual reasons.
Though at some point last year Derbyshire records were opened again, having been locked up when ancestry got the parish registers. No idea of the reason why that was suddenly possible.