Juggling All Those Demands

22nd September 2004

Duncan Macniven If you think that the man in charge of the General Register Office for Scotland, where births, deaths and marriages are recorded, has a fairly predictable job, you would be very much mistaken.

Some careers bring with them inherent variety but others, perhaps, could be considered to have a more predictable quality and might even, if you were being uncharitable, be described as 'boring'. At first glance this might seem to be the case for Duncan Macniven, the Registrar General for Scotland. After all, the department he manages - the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) maintains a national database of births, deaths and marriages, and produces a census every 10 years.

And that, you might think, is that.

Except... Some people of a homicidal mind might not want a death to be recorded. A young girl who has become pregnant and managed to keep the news secret from her parents may not want details of the subsequent birth to become known. And even in this apparently more liberal age, a couple eloping to Gretna Green could be eager for news of their nuptials not to be recorded, or a celebrity pair wanting to avoid additional publicity might want to follow the Madonna/Guy Ritchie path and opt for a wedding north of the border - but without, perhaps, the attendant fanfare that accompanied their wee ceremony at Skibo Castle.

As for the census - this involves every person or household in Scotland, in a fairly time-consuming process, completing a questionnaire that covers many aspects of their lives. Just gathering this volume of data is a logistical nightmare but then the Registrar General and his team have to interpret at least some of it, in order that national and local government can adequately plan the sorts of services that the population has come to expect, or might need in the future.

And then there's social change - such as the recent legislation that allows for two people of the same sex to declare themselves as a couple in the eyes of the law.

On top of this is the massive increase in interest in genealogy, and the understandable desire of people to find out where and who they came from - and because historically Scotland has been an exporter of people to all parts of the globe, there's barely a part of the world that doesn't contain someone with a Caledonian heritage. The Registrar General and his department, in consequence, are leading the world in making its records accessible via the Internet - but that's only part of his ambitions.

"We did a census in 2001 as we have done every 10 years - but that's too occasional because you only get detailed information once every decade," Duncan Macniven says.

"So the information held is becoming increasingly out-of-date as you move nearer and nearer towards your next census. We are therefore looking to see whether it's possible to use other survey data that's already collected and available, to lower the peak demand that the census brings on both this organisation and the people of Scotland.

"In essence, we're looking to see ways in which we can get better statistics that are produced at greater frequency and keep them very accurate.

"There has developed a string of quite major surveys, such as the Scottish Household Survey and the Labour Force Survey," he says.

"People answer questions and the results are both detailed and rich in data. Sample size, however, is inevitably much smaller than the census, which covers everyone in the country. The difficulty of that is that it doesn't give you the richness of small-area statistics that the census does. They tend to be subject surveys rather than linking up different factors.

"For example, the household survey might describe the size and accommodation offered by a property, while the Labour Force Survey looks at employment. But if you were to add them and other surveys together and administer them as one core survey with several strands, you could get to something approaching the quality of the census. And let's face it, filling out a census form would not be everyone's definition of a good time."

He explains that another way of achieving this would be to share data which is collected by different government organisations. As an illustration, Duncan Macniven points out that one of the census questions relate to car ownership, information that is already held by DVLA in Swansea.

"There's clearly a privacy issue that needs to be properly debated but maybe it's in the public interest to link these sorts of databases," he adds.

In order for this happen, Duncan Macniven does not see the likelihood of significant changes before the 2011 census and he rejects the suggestion that he might be in the process of empire building.

"It could be the reverse," he says. "We could end up saying that there is no need in the future to do the sort of detailed census which in the past has been one of our main responsibilities. Having said that, we do run the census very well."

This is not immodesty but a realistic assessment of a department that has well-tried and proven systems for gathering, storing and making available immense volumes of data, which are kept at the department's Edinburgh headquarters, New Register House at the east end of Princes Street. The building was completed in 1863 at a cost of £35,000 to a design of Robert Matheson, who also designed the former general post office in the city.

The main feature of the building is the Dome, a fireproof central repository with five tiers of ironwork shelving and galleries similar to those at the British Museum in London. The Dome is over 90 feet high and so well planned that it still serves its function remarkably well, although staff estimate it will be full within the next five years, as its four miles of shelving already contain half a million volumes of information, including 400,000 statutory registers of all the births, deaths and marriages in Scotland since 1855.

Parish registers are perhaps the greatest treasures in New Register House because within these outwardly bland volumes lies much of Scotland's history. The oldest dates from 1553 and is for Errol, near Perth. As one example of the sort of treasure contained, the death of Lord Darnley, husband to Mary Queen of Scots, is recorded in a volume of Canongate Parish records by the words:

'The Kyng's grace blawen up with buder [gunpowder] in the Kirk of Field the X of Februer 1566.'

It is little wonder than that, in addition to being a career civil servant, Duncan Macniven is a historian by background and, like most people who have managed to convey their passion with their career, he is animated, enthusiastic and endlessly optimistic about the job he does. He also recognises the speed of change and positively embraces it.

"The rise in new technology has been a significant recent factor," he says.

"We will soon have an electronic register instead of effectively keeping the register as a local database and that will operate in real time from our computer. You will be able to register births, marriages, and deaths anywhere in Scotland - once new enabling legislation is passed by the Scottish Parliament. What we're really talking about is having a national system being locally delivered."

These sorts of legislative changes have been part of the meat, bread and butter of all previous Registrar Generals but what separates Duncan Macniven most strongly from his predecessors, perhaps, is the modern interest - some might say obsession - with tracing their family or personal history.

"The biggest change is with genealogy, that's where the exciting developments are happening," he says.

"Part of this is because we're leading the world; we are the flagbearers in that I don't know of anyone who is ahead of us in this field in terms of having excellent records, easily accessible, on the web. Some have one or other of those elements - accessibility or comprehensiveness - but we're leading the way in having both."

The evidence can be viewed at the pay-per-view website www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk, run by a partnership that Duncan Macniven describes as 'hugely successful.' between GROS and Scotland On Line, an Internet and webhosting IT company. He explains:

"When Scotland On Line took over in 2002 we were getting 12,000 paid accesses a year and now it's over 65,000. We are getting good press coverage and becoming better known and a lot of the reason for that is because we have an interesting product that's relatively simple to use. There's also an element of good judgement in the partnership we have with Scotland On Line in that we each brought something different and important to the party.

"It's an example of a wise decision taken for the right reasons - to put easily accessible, comprehensive information onto the web. It's certainly not peripheral and will continue to be a very important part of the work we do, especially the change element. It will always be a co-equal component of our work."

Some of the credit for the fact that GROS is leading the world as a provider of online genealogical information is down to the foresight of the people who work there but financial backing from the Scottish Executive and its forerunner the Scottish Office have also played a big part.

"The biggest factor is a willingness from government ministers who recognised that it needed to be done," says the Registrar General.

"They have committed significant sums of money to allow this to happen. Looking back, yes, we had the advantage of standing on the shoulders of the work done by our predecessors and the Mormons."

Ah yes, the Mormons. In what must be an almost unique partnership between a church and state, the Mormons obtained the agreement of a former Registrar General to undertake a huge project in which birth and death registers were put on micro-film and micro-fiche, which then made them much easier to be transferred onto computerreadable files.

The Digital Images of the General Register Office of Scotland (DIGROS) project will soon be completed. Duncan Macniven says:

"Ministers made the money available because they are aware of the importance of tourism to Scotland's economy, and of the fact that many of our visitors come here from abroad because they have Scottish ancestry that they want to explore."

Because of this awareness, plans are in an advanced stage of development to create a Scottish Family History Centre. In this, the records of GROS, the National Archives of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon (the body that deals with registration of heraldic titles, coats of arms and so on) will offer access to all three archives via one door of entry.

"These are the three bodies of government that have the most important family history so we want to combine to create a physical centre for genealogical research," Duncan Macniven says.

"People don't know which records sit in which buildings and that causes confusion, so we want a single front door they can walk through. Because the images are digitised and can be called up on a computer, it doesn't matter where that building is, it can be anywhere."

The National Archives of Scotland hold things like wills and Church of Scotland parish records that are not about births, deaths and marriages. For example, the local Kirk would have views on other aspects of behaviour and would discipline people who transgressed. If you were sleeping with someone with whom you weren't married, you would be hauled up in front of the Kirk, for an infringement of the church's moral code. There are also court records, so if you had a smuggler in your family background, you could learn about it here.

The Court of the Lord Lyon holds information about coats of arms, and incidentally, anyone can apply, they don't have to come from a landed or titled family. There was a recent report about the American politician, Colin Powell, wanting to see if his ancestors had a coat of arms, and if not, how to acquire one himself. The only restriction on application is that you have to be what is regarded as a 'solid citizen' and presumably Mr Powell would qualify.

Duncan Macniven adds:

"So the first part of the project is the physical centre that people can attend. Second is the united website, for us, the National Archive and the Court of the Lord Lyon. Third, we want to help local authorities give local access to family history records. Beyond that, we may be able to draw on the records of other bodies relevant to family history.

"For example, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, which has a database of Scotland's buildings, including many that have since been demolished. Linking an organisation like that in would allow the family historian to look at an address, for example, on a birth certificate, and then look up the property itself, to give them a much deeper insight to the circumstances in which their ancestor lived.

"So we can make an easy link between our three offices and create a single door through which people can access our services. They will then be able to dip into their family records in whatever depth they require."

He concludes:

"The frustrating thing about the job is that every question you ask receives an answer but poses more questions. But this is a hugely interesting job and one of the main reasons for that is because the information we're providing is of importance and interest to people out there."

So, not boring then.