Freedom of Information Act 2000
Information Request: IR1926764
Date of Request: 09 October 2014 Date of Disclosure: 24 October 2014
Devon County Council’s response is provided below in bold text:
Request
Could you provide me details of any agreements that exist between Devon County Council and any third party organisations in relation to access to historic Devon Parish Records?
This would include the agreements between any Devon Diocese and the County Records Office to store parish records.
In addition any agreements with a third party in order to:-
Scan parish records Transcribe parish records Make parish records available in a digital form Make any other copies of parish records
I would like to know the terms of any agreements including the length of the agreement and restrictions these agreements might place on other parties to gain access to Parish Records.
The Devon Record Office (now Devon Heritage Service) is designated one of the two Exeter Diocesan Record Offices (with the Plymouth & West Devon Record Office) under the Parochial Registers and Records Measure 1978, supplemented by a Diocesan Instrument dated 31 March 1999, under which the Bishop of Exeter directs that the Devon Record Office is to have responsibility for storage and access facilities for the records of those parishes in the Archdeaconries of Exeter, Barnstaple and Totnes, and also the parishes of Bere Alston, Bere Ferrers, Broadwoodwidger, Kelly with Bradstone, Lifton, Mary Tavy, Peter Tavy, Tavistock & Gulworthy in the Archdeaconry of Plymouth.
Under an agreement dated 10 January 2012 between Devon Heritage Service and Brightsolid online publishing limited the DHS grants to the publisher the right to create and publish digital images, transcripts and indexes of Devon parish registers in its care on a subscription website, Findmypast, for the term of 10 years, in return for a royalty payment of 12.5% of sales on an exclusive basis. If the DHS grants to any third party a non-exclusive licence to publish in excess of 10% of the digitised material online, the royalty rate will be reduced to 7%. The parish register material may be published up to but not beyond 1915.
Under an agreement dated 3 July 2013 between the DHS and the Devon Family History Society, the DFHS may digitise selected parish registers (up to but not beyond 1915) in the care of the DHS and make them available on the members’ area of its website. DHS reserves the right to submit the digitised images created by DFHS to a third party online publisher as pertaining to the agreement dated 10 January 2012 above, any income resulting remaining the sole property of the DHS.
If you wish to speak with someone regarding the above request, please contact the Information Governance Team on 01392 383445 or email [email protected]