In my inbox this morning I found this offer and announcement from the British Newspaper Archive (a subsidiary of Find My past) about the 1939 Register
*** LATEST NEWS – 28 Jan 2016 8:00am (NZT)***
This brief announcement, not repeated as far as I can see on any FMP web site or social media, tells us a number of important things:
- FMP are about to increase (all?) their prices. 🙁
- You can reduce the impact of that temporarily by using this 10% discount offer 🙂
- You’ve only got about two days to do so 🙁
- FMP are including the 1939 Register in their World and Britain subscriptions from February 16th 🙂
This last point (4) is by far the most interesting, but can be read in a number of different ways.
We could simply be grateful. It is after all what the majority (as far as I can tell) of people have been demanding since the 1939 was released in November.
But many of us will be annoyed that so soon after emphatically repeating that it was NOT going to be included in subscriptions they have again demonstrated poor communication skills (to be generous!). The phrase “milked for all they are worth” comes to mind and doesn’t leave me feeling good about FMP.
I’m sure we will all wonder WHY? Has the initial uptake and payments been so great that they have already covered their initial investment? Or has it been so poor, and caused so many people to cancel or (like me) not renew their subscription that an urgent and desperate u-turn is necessary?
I guess based on previous experiences we will never know. We must all simply make our own decisions on whether to take up the opportunity or not.
For myself, I decided weeks ago that for all but my closest ancestors “unlocking the household” simply wasn’t worth the expense. I discovered nothing new in 99.9% of cases. I have however found a number of new pieces of information from the freely available data, and will continue to do the same. I generally do not find FMPs other data sets of any great use over and above the alternatives I already subscribe to.
