Ian Hartas of Cheshire BMD has sent the following message:
The various BMD web sites under the UKBMD banner are all joint ventures between the various register offices and the family history societies. The data, however, remains the copyright and under the ownership of the register offices. Cheshire East is now under the jurisdiction of the same registrar as Cheshire Central. The registrar at Cheshire Central has not allowed us to show mother’s maiden names in the births and age at death in the deaths in the Cheshire Central indexes. This limitation has now been extended to the Cheshire East data too. So for the time being the mother’s maiden name and age at death will not appear in the Cheshire East records.
Why has the RBMD for East Cheshire opted to modify the data available to legitimate searchers? Under Freedom of Information Act this data ought to be available to us. However, I can see this will be but at a cost; that someone will be available in an office to send the information – once an application has been made, approved and paid for. Legitimate searchers already do this to confirm their researches, or otherwise. If the restriction is in connection with identitiy theft and fraud there are many other ways in which a dedicated fraudster discover the available information.
I have family in the said area, they have made use of the searches and re-discovered family connections in the process. If the restriction was for a specified length of time after death say five years and then reinserted fine, it can be managed through progamming; no-one would have to duplicate the effort involved