Family Records Centre

There were good facilities for customers with special needs, and there was a small bookshop next to the entrance on the ground floor and a refreshment area with vending machines and lockers for personal belongings in the basement.

Using the details from an index, a copy (certificate) of the corresponding birth, marriage or death entry could be applied for at the cashiers' section on the same floor.

Before the FRC opened, the census microfilms were at the Public Record Office (now part of the National Archives) in Chancery Lane for some years, after having been moved from the Land Registry building, Portugal Street, London, where they had been since the mid-1970s.

[1] Official press releases were vague about plans for the births, marriages and deaths indexes housed on the ground floor.

During October 2007 the index volumes in question were progressively removed from public access to a closed archive in Christchurch, Dorset.