WWII medal roll index cards - temporary suspension

I've just noticed on Forces War Records that the WWII medal index cards have disappeared.

I have an Ancestry login (but no membership) and can see that my granddad's WW2 medal index card is available through them, but when I go to their entire Card catalogue, the "UK, British Army World War II Medal Cards, 1939-1945" catalogue is not there.

Can someone check Ancestry please, to see if the cards are still accessible.

I've asked FWR why they've disappeared, no reply as yet. I'm hoping they've been removed in order to 'clean' them up somewhat.

Cheers.
John

 

Hi John,

The cards are not accessible at present:

 

This is what I'm getting looks like they've been pulled to me

 

Kew's tendering procedure for the digitisation and publication is here. The details of the contract are not published but general guidelines are in a pdf which downloads.

Licensing - Army Medal Index Cards - Contracts Finder

 

I'm hoping they're just updating them (correcting all the auto OCR translations) and they'll be back soon.

 

Hmm...

This has happened on TNA to AIR78 a couple of times - in each case it was to review FoI content following a complaint from living person.

Was put back up but with an undisclosed redaction.

Ross

 

Apparently they're still available via Fold3. So I'm wondering if they've been deliberately pulled from FWR.

I'm still waiting for FWR to respond to my question.....

 

Unable at access the records either via FWR or Fold3.

 

Thanks Promenade

I've just seen a medal card posted, so I asked where it was obtained from, and they said Fold3.....now I'm puzzled and thinking/hoping it's more of a FOI issue as Ross RAFCommands said.

 

I posted one on another thread . It wasn`t showing on either FWR or Fold3 but a search on Ancestry showed it with the option to view on Fold3 which when you accept opens Fold3 (if logged in) in a different window and displays the card available to download ?

Strange

Kyle

 

Cheers Kyle Mr Jinks very strange in deed. I'll wait out now 'till I, hopefully, get a reply from FWR.

John.

 

Option has been removed . Ancestry too stating `Page no longer available`

Kyle

 

I have a reply:

"The provider of this collection, The National Archives, UK, have asked to redact a few records from this collection. While this work is being carried out, we have temporarily paused access to the collection. It's hoped to be up and running again in a few days"

John.

 

The old tea and biscuits meeting that was the Kew "User Forum" - axed February 2019 - received an explanation of "takedown" in November 2012.

"Q. You have stated that the reclosure of records is undertaken in accordance with section 5(3) of the Public Records Act, but 5(3) doesn’t explicitly refer to reclosure. Please could you clarify?’
This question was taken away and the following answer supplied at the November 2012 meeting:

See item 2.3 here:

https://webarchive.nationalarchives...ocuments/user-forum-minutes-november-2012.pdf

 

I'm assuming the reference to the Freedom of Information Act 20000, is a typo and not from a time traveller???

 

Something in the tea, perhaps: coffee was available.

 

The major issue I have with redaction procedure is that there seems to be no notification of what was redacted and how.

On one hand you could consider that an individual card had it's image modified to mask the required information but there is no trackable information available in the index TNA or Partner to say that an edit has taken place.

The most cost effective method for TNA to redact Medal Cards is to mark the entire card image as Closed until XXXX - this information would not be displayed by the Partner Search engine.

This would lead to the assumption that a card does not exist if using Partner version.

I have looked on TNA images to try to see a redaction of pdf image on AIR78 but have failed to see any evidence - AIR78 in particular is made up of Pieces that each contain a few hundred page images, each image with several individual cards.

There are no Closed pieces, so any redaction must have been done to individual images within the piece. Leaves the question of how the image was redacted eg removal of the full page resulting in loss of 5 or more other cards or individual line alteration?

With no indication of what was redacted there is also no indication of when or how redactions will be reversed.

I now reply to people I'm tying to assist with the line - no trace found but that does not mean it does exist or did not exist.

Damn Schrodinger's Cat is applied to Records Status at TNA and Partners.

Ross

 

Depending on when they come back up....and depending on my mood, I may write to TNA for clarification of the suspension.

I appreciate they won't tell me if it was an individual that made a complaint but it might shed some light on the temporary withdrawal.

John.

 

Customer service at its best !

Even managed to speak to an Ancestry human who freely admitted he did not know (or perhaps could not say)

Sadly I did not make a note of exactly how many cards were part of the original release - interested as perhaps there is a lot of weeding/reverse engineering happening offline.