Births, Deaths and Marriages Online provides public access to a large database of historical births, deaths and marriages. This is a vital resource to historians and researchers. However the search results do not include the Folio Number associated with each birth/death registration. The Folio Number refers to the page number in the official register at the time the original registration was recorded. This is useful because it can be used to look up what district the birth or death was registered in, using publicly available District Key documents. The folio number is already publicly available information - in numerous public libraries historical BDM records are available to peruse via microfiche and these include the Folio Number. The absence of the folio number from the online BDM search tool makes the search results significantly less useful compared to the library microfiches, but obviously these microfiches are not nearly as accessible as a website, particularly for disabled researchers. Recent legislation explicitly supports making Folio numbers available - see the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021, Section 89 (2): "The Registrar-General may also make available, in respect of a birth, marriage, or death recorded in a pre-1998 register, the folio number for the information." Data Formats The folio number data could be provided a number of formats, whichever is most convenient to BDMs/DIA: - Added as a column on the BDM search results (most preferable, but may involve some website development work) - Provided as a CSV/spreadsheet (perhaps over multiple files eg yearly) with the folio number listed beside each historical birth/death registration number. - Provided as a database export (eg a SQL file) - least preferable Notes - This request obviously applies ONLY to historical birth and death registrations as per BDM's criteria, eg, births that occurred more than 100 years ago, and so on. - The sharp-eyed reader may have noticed I have asked only for birth and death folio numbers, omitting marriage registrations. That is because marriage registrations were recorded in a different fashion and their folio numbers do not provide district information. In addition, marriage registration folio numbers are currently available online via Otago University's Varcoe's NZ Marriages Index.

BDM's historical birth and death records currently do not include what district the birth or death was registered in, making genealogical and historical research more time-consuming than necessary.

Providing the folio number would give researchers easy access to this important and useful contextual information.

Increasing the accessibility of this data is particularly important for disabled researchers.

Providing the folio number would allow researchers to look up what district the birth or death was registered in, using publicly available District Key documents (available at libraries and online, eg, on the NZSG website).

Providing this information online should be a straight-forward task and would be of great benefit to genealogists, historians and other researchers.