Date: 11 August 2006 19:58

CELEBRATING THE SUCCESS OF FAMILY HISTORY INDEX

Volunteers from across Cambridgeshire will be celebrating the success of a 
dedicated family history website during a special celebration on August 30.

Five years ago, Cambridgeshire County Council's Registration Service joined 
forces with the Cambridgeshire Family History Society to create Camdex - a 
system that will eventually give online access to index information on all 
births, marriages and deaths in the county since 1837.

Local History Society volunteers have been working hard adding information 
at a rate of 10,000 entries a week - now five years since Camdex went live, 
some 25 volunteers from around the county are regularly adding entries to 
the index which currently contains more than 1.5 million pieces of 
information.

To mark this remarkable milestone, the volunteers and Registration Staff who 
work alongside them, will come together in the garden of Audmoor House 
Register Office, March, for a special celebration tea party, hosted by 
County Council Cabinet Member Councillor Linda Oliver and the authority's 
Director of Customer Service Pat Harding.

Councillor Oliver said: "Over the last five years Camdex has proved to be a 
runaway success and I am very pleased indeed to be given the opportunity to 
thank the people who have worked so hard to create this valuable resource 
and who are committed to its continued development."

All the Camdex information is available at the touch of a button either on 
computer at home, through any County Council Library, or from places such as 
Internet cafes.

The development of the Camdex software was funded by the Registration 
Service and to eliminate known errors in current local indexes, the 
volunteers work from the original registers in Register Offices around the 
county.

It is possible to search according to a wide variety of criteria using 
surname, forename or a combination of both. The search can be by one or all 
of the Cambridgeshire Registration Districts and cover one year or a stated 
period.

Pat Harding added: "Thanks to Camdex our customers are now not only able to 
search for their relatives on-line but they can also place an order for a 
copy of a certificate whenever it suits them from anywhere in the world. 
This online facility enables people to contact us at any time day or night."

 Camdex proved to be a success from the start with 61,000 hits in the first 
twenty days when it launched in 2001. Now five years later the site averages 
10,000 hits a month with requests for information from places as far afield 
as America and New Zealand.

Family history is the reason given for purchasing 90% of all certificates 
and a single customer placed one order for an amazing 71 birth certificates, 
as part of family history research. 75% of all the orders are placed outside 
of normal working hours.

To view Camdex, go to www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk 
http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk and select the Births, Marriages and Deaths 
option.

John Reynolds