The National Archives (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk) in England has provided an update on the mammoth undertaking it has just started in transferring almost 10 million UK military service records to its facility at Kew from the Ministry of Defence, representing service in the British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.
From the post:
The records included in this collection cover personnel in all three services, Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force, where the individual has a date of birth prior to or up to 1939. They include around 500 000 with First World War service and the vast majority of those who served in the Second World War. These records are of national significance which is why both MOD and The National Archives are working to ensure that their long-term preservation can be assured before they are made accessible to public both online and on site at Kew.
This is the biggest and most complex transfer of public records in our history. In an average year, we will take in approximately 1.5 linear kilometres of physical records from government departments. These service records will require us to take in an additional 33 linear kilometres of physical records over the life of the project. We know the project carries significant operational and logistical overheads, but this is an incredible opportunity allowing us to develop an understanding of the records and the information they hold.
The archive also explains that there will likely be some major restrictions on access to more recent material once they have been catalogued:
As these are personnel records, they naturally contain a range of personal data including medical information. To protect the information in these records, closure will apply until 115 years past the date of birth of the individual. Whether or not the material can be open to all or closed fully or in part will be assessed on this basis or upon request under relevant data protection and freedom of information laws.
For the full post please visit https://livelb.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/mod-records-project/.
Chris
Just out, Sharing Your Family History Online is on sale at https://bit.ly/SharingFamHist. Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 is also out, as are Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.
No comments:
Post a Comment