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By nature, some Family History Societies and County Record Offices may have some initial concerns about FreeREG.
What follows on this page are examples of some discussions which have taken place, either with individuals, a Family History Society or the Principal Archivists. They are not "ordered" in any particular way, and they are by no means examples of every communication we have had with them or others.
| Part of a discussion between FreeREG (Rod Neep & Brian
Randall) and John Addis-Smith of the FFHS (Federation of Family History
Societies)
Comments made by John are personal opinions and comments and not the official view of the FFHS. Discussions are on-going. |
In message
<81h3aso4dtond3690dudmh42h8pagojamq@4ax.com>, John V Addis-Smith
<jaddis@rmplc.co.uk> writes
>I have had a brief look. The setup looks pretty
good so far - quite a Hello John, Thanks for your very valid comments. Those are very much appreciated. >Some issues which I could not find covered yet are: >Accuracy: Details have now been added to the web pages on quality control, they will be made "live" sometime tomorrow. In fact, a separate new page for Quality Control has been created based on comments similar to yours which we have received from FHSs and CROs. >Welsh Surnames
>I found nothing on how Welsh patronymics will be
handled. Given the This is a very good point indeed, and one which I am aware of, but which I had not looked into in detail. (Probably because I don't have a lot of in-depth experience of it!) If you do know yourself, or know someone you could recommend who you would trust to set up the correct standards then please do have them write something for us! We will adopt it! >Priorities
>I have seen no mention of any indexing priorities.
I should have This has now also been added at appropriate places on the web pages along the lines you suggest. These are very valid points, to which I have added "non-conformist registers which have not already been transcribed", and a note to the effect that transcriptions of these done by our volunteers should be given to the relevant FHS and the CRO.
>I would suggest that an effort is made to automate
the search for a Yes... agreed. In fact, we are just starting to develop the format and content of pages for each county, in respect of which church registers are included in FreeREG, (with dates of periods covered), and what work is in progress. A link to GENUKI is envisaged from each parish or church, and also a reference as to where the original records are held for that church. Each CRO has its own fiche (where filmed) of the originals, but in most cases those fiche have no reference numbers as such, only the name of the parish and something like "fiche 23 of 65".I'm not sure that reference to the LDS film numbers would be a practical thing to do. In any case (and I have yet to write those web pages yet) I think that I would rather point researchers to either the CRO, or preferably to the services of the relevant FHS to order prints. Effectively the correct message should be something along the lines of: "The FreeREG database is just a finding tool. It should not be considered to be *proof*, or indeed that it is always 100% accurate, or contains all of the information in the actual register. Once you have found a record, then write to the relevant FHS, who, for a small fee, will obtain a print from the original register for you. In many cases you can also purchase a full transcript of the register from the FHS." ... words to that effect. I'll have to think on that further, and would certainly welcome your suggestions! I do think that it is important to point folks towards the services of the FHS, and it could be an area where the FHS can generate a little more income, (and perhaps offset some of their perceived fears about loss of income from sales of transcripts too).
>>This would, I believe, be to the advantage of both FFHS and
>Here I think, there may be a major problem. I obviously
cannot speak Each of the ones we have talked to so far began by expressing these doubts and reservations, but in each case, they have now agreed to co-operate. That is very encouraging indeed.... but of course, the major objectors may still be waiting in the wings <grin>, whilst others will be sitting back to see which way the tide starts to flow before making a comment. So far we do not have one CRO or FHS who has come down with a firm "no", and the more that have a positive attitude towards co-operation, then the easier it will be for others to follow suit.
>but FreeREG is directly competing with the Bap, To a certain extent, yes... although I would not call it "competition". I appreciate that many FHSs charge a lookup fee, and in effect, FreeREG would be offering a similar service for free, but at the same time, that has already been done by the LDS now, with the on-line IGI (complete with all its pitfalls). I think that we can make a very serious effort to point researchers towards other services offered by the FHSs. One of the "problems" of the Internet, both with on-line searches of the IGI, and with "lookups" requested on the County mailing lists, is that we have started to see the development of a "research culture" which depends on secondary, tertiary, or even worse, sources which are taken as "gospel" without any proof. "Hey I have found the baptisms of John SMITH in the right year in xyz parish in the IGI... so it must be mine!".... if only the researcher would also check the burials for the following day, s/he would find that the same John SMITH had been buried as an infant. One could quote many similar instances of "weak" research. If there is one statement that I would like to make more than anything, it is this: I firmly believe that we (GENUKI, FreeREG, the FHSs and FFHS) should not only be aiming to help "educate" people away from this "quick results" syndrome developed as the result of Internet "lookups", but to direct them to the one place that encourages the correct research techniques in context to their area of research, and with the correct local knowledge. That one place is the local FHS.
>It really does seem to be an unnecessary duplication
of work to I sincerely hope that we can! Let's work on it and throw some ideas around. The bottom line is that the solution should be something that is of benefit both to the FFHS, individual FHSs, and importantly, the individuals out there doing the research for their ancestors. Note that I didn't say "of benefit to FreeREG". That doesn't enter into the equation at all. Our overall aim is to make it easier for researchers to *locate* a record relating to their ancestor. We would always recommend that the next step is to obtain the proof by obtaining a print of the original record (and a transcript of the full register if available) from the FHS.... and while they are at it... there is so much more that they could gain from membership of the FHS. There are literally millions of novice researchers now out there (thanks to the influence of the Internet) who yet have to discover the real benefits of belonging to an FHS, and the extra services and publications that are available from them. Census indexes, MIs, pre 1841 censuses, tax returns, protestation returns, hearth tax.... phew! How long is the list? FreeREG may perhaps diminish the financial returns a little from one activity of some of the FHSs, but enhance others considerably. How many societies are yet to offer to obtain prints of registers?
>It is also possible a few years down the line, So let us all co-operate?
>I am well aware that most FHSs have not tapped
potential indexers and Indeed. But I don't see FreeREG as "going it alone on a tangent". We shall recommend to every new transcriber that even though the data is entered into the FreeREG database for people to search, that the *only* copies of full transcripts freely go to the FHS and the CRO. The FHS also stands to gain. The CRO stands to gain, and the individual researchers stand to gain.
>I personally see one or two commercial 'pay to
view' sites containing Pay to view is not something which fits into the concept of FreeREG at all. But I had better perhaps qualify that statement... FreeREG does not believe in "pay to find" or "pay to locate". We believe that step should be free. There is a big difference between that and "pay to view" or "pay to own a copy of". I certainly have no problem with that! FHSs and CROs do that on a regular basis. The problem with "pay to locate" is that a researcher has no guarantee that what has been found is the correct record. If however, the researcher can *freely* locate several likely events, and use his/her expertise to compare, say, a baptism event with corresponding burial events to rule some of them out, s/he can then "pay to obtain" with more confidence. The same applies to marriages, being able to see the fathers' names and witnesses names before "paying to obtain". Not within the realm of FreeREG, but we all know the problems associated with ordering birth, marriage and death certificates! Having said that, 95% of people researching their family history are not aware that a copy of a marriage certificate that they pay for from the ONS is just a typewritten or hand written copy, and not the photocopy of an original marriage register with real signatures of their ancestors. The FHS and CRO can supply those! FreeREG can help people locate them.
>No doubt Then that makes it even more important for FreeREG (in co-operation with Family History Societies) to do it quickly, before researchers are drawn into having to pay for locating records of events from commercial organisations which would unscrupulously steal the research efforts of others (including the FHSs) and then make a charge for it!
>I am certainly not against FreeREG, I just don't
see its viability We have to pre-empt the activities of those commercial organisations, by making the location of records free, and pointing researchers towards the FHSs and CROs for reasonably priced prints of pages of the registers. Thanks for all your comments. Perhaps you can give further feedback on ways that we can all co-operate. I certainly welcome your views such as the ones stated here. Best regards Rod |
|
Results of, and continued discussion between FreeREG (Rod Neep and Mike Strange <smike@globalnet.co.uk> ) and the Bedfordshire County Archivist. |
In article
<E12GUTB-0003nU-00@cobalt3-he.global.net.uk>, Mike
>I am delighted to say that I had a very positive
meeting with the Excellent news! well done!
>He has a concern that I share - Quality Control
and how to ensure This is always going to be awkward. But yes... I agree that quality control is extremely important. We have already ruled out accepting data from any researcher's own family records for this reason, as other odd bits of data which were not from original registers could creep in.Secondary sources are not acceptable, unless they are *proved* to have been a transcript which has been checked, and even then there are potential problems (see below). In an ideal world, double keying is preferable, (where two people independently enter the same data), but it is very time consuming with data of this type. Second best is a check of the data against the original register by someone else. In an ideal world, this should be done with a print of the data, and discrepancies highlighted, with the correct wording/date added beside it. Then the print given to a third (experienced) person to check the highlighted entries, and finally the data changed in the computer file if necessary. I am more than happy to see an entry which has "----SOP" or "ALLSOP ?" as the entry, as long as there is a corresponding note in the "notes" section of that record, such as: "illegible", "faded", "perhaps BLENKINSOP", or whatever. That clearly indicates a possibly incorrect transcription, which alerts the researcher to look for themselves at the original. Something they should *always* do anyway! By the way, we are setting up the database with a "key" which links the transcriber to each individual record. In a very, very worse case scenario, all entries in the database from that one transcriber could be deleted. In practical terms it may be difficult to sometimes ascertain that double checking has been done. A person entering data could say "my wife checked it very carefully". Nothing wrong with that. The alternative, and I am prepared for this to happen if need be, is that the data goes to a member of the local FHS for checking before it goes into the FreeREG database. The main problem is one of access to fiche of the original register. Let's say that the person entering data lives in Australia and obtains fiche from the LDS on loan, or from a different FHS, etc. (Some County Record Offices will sell fiche to any recognised FHS or to individuals). The checker(s) will also need access to the fiche. Essentially, that will usually mean a local person, unless the CRO or FHS is prepared to loan out a copy of the fiche to the checker. Some FHSs and CROs will do that, but some don't like the idea of having fiche released in this way. This probably needs to be decided upon at a local level. What is the view of the Beds. FHS and the CRO on this? Their decision will influence how, and by whom, checking is carried out, and we need to co-operate with them. Whilst on this topic, some FHSs have already given permission for the data from transcripts that they hold to be entered into the FreeREG database, (if that is agreeable to the transcriber and the CRO). The same might apply to Bedfordshire. If that happens, can we assume that such transcripts have already been double checked? A secondary problem arises where the original transcript was type written and needs entering into a computer. There is room for errors to creep in here. With the best will in the world, a transcriber will make mistakes. I know I have! I have now typed in well over a million entries into my computer from various registers. Sometimes the checker has spotted the mistake which I made, either a typo or a mis-interpretation, sometimes they haven't, and it has been spotted by someone else at a later date. The important thing is that we do have a mechanism for re-checking, and altering the database, even if it is only to add a note explaining the query. That's one of the main reasons we have that "notes" field in the database. If there is any doubt, then that doubt should be noted. Regards Rod See also: Quality Control |
|
Part of a discussion between Rod Neep and Hugh Kearsey of the Oxfordshire Family History Society. (The OFHS have already transcribed parish registers foir the whole of the county, and offer them for sale on fiche.) |
In message <6e.788818.25c1e42b@aol.com>, HKearsey@aol.com writes >Rod,
>Most of my comments express the "official" view
of OFHS. This has been based >on the fact that most transcribers didn't
want their transcripts "given That's certainly understandable.
>Most of our transcripts are typewritten and most
of our members do That's one of the "problems" about an active society who got on with the task from an early stage! <grin>
>However, we would not object if any of our transcribers
offered their Thanks.... By nature we won't be canvassing every transcriber in the whole country. We'll have to leave it up to them to find out about FreeREG, and decide for themselves if they want to submit their data. At the same time, we are eager to make it very clear to everyone that this is not a project where their whole transcript is going to be reproduced in a format where it could be misused. The key to much of this will be co-operation with the family history societies.
>Rod, we can always discus any problems over the
phone. I am not that far OK! ;-) Best regards Rod |
|
Part of a discussion between FreeREG (Rod Neep and Libby Duffield) and Jonathan Pepler, the Cheshire County Archivist. |
>------Original Message-----
>From: PEPLER, Jonathan
>Thank you for your email. I have to confess that
I have not heard of FreeREG is actually only three weeks old, although it does seem to have caught the imagination of the world fairly quickly! Libby is acting as our co-ordinator for Cheshire, which essentially means that she will be keeping tabs on what contributors are doing. I'm not sure at this stage how many contributors/volunteers are involved with Cheshire, but there are certainly rather a lot of volunteers on the sidelines waiting to help. Brian Randall, who runs the GENUKI Project on the Internet (and which is closely associated with FreeREG) has already made contact with the Federation of Family History Societies regarding our new project. It was considered that this would be an apt first move, and then to follow up by contacting individual societies. Initial discussions appear to be favourable. We have had contact already with some individual County Family History Societies, (though not yet in Cheshire) and these, after understandable initial doubts, have all turned out positively.
>At this stage, I don't think I have any particular
problems with the We are definitely not going to be involved in the publication in any form whatsoever, of whole or partial photographic copies of registers, whole or partial transcripts, or even an index to the records of a parish. Like you, we don't think that would be appropriate. (I wouldn't like to rule that out completely at some time in the very distant future of course, climates do change, but there is certainly no intention to do it now, and it would not be done unless it was with the co-operation of the Principal Archivist). Wherever it has not already been done, a FreeREG volunteer who extracts data from a church register will certainly give a copy on disk and in printed and indexed form to the relevant County Record Office. That should be the only copy made, and it should be the decision of the Principal Archivist if another copy is made available to the local FHS. Some CROs give such permission, some give it with conditions, and some don't give permission, but that decision is yours of course. All that will be possible on FreeREG on the Internet, will be for an individual researcher to enter an ancestor's name, specify a search for a baptism, marriage or burial, state a date range to search, (and optionally, narrow it down to one county, town or village). It won't be possible to "cheat" the system by requesting a search of all records for one church or parish, or to do a search for everyone whose name begins with "A", then "B" etc. Every possible precaution has been made to prevent access to the complete database.
>I suspect that it would be sensible if the project
were This is an excellent idea, and one with which we would be very pleased indeed to co-operate. (Please feel free to forward this email too). I do appreciate that there will be initial concerns and doubts about the FreeREG Project, the most common of which will be the one from the CROs relating to complete transcripts being made available in the Internet. But I am sure that, if handled correctly, the end result will be one which could have considerable benefits to individual researchers, to the County Record Offices and also to the Family History Societies. I am aware that Cheshire is one of the very few County Record Offices that has already computerised data for parish registers, wills, etc. I am sure that our volunteers would be happy to extract data from non-conformist records, or any which have not already been done. Many other CROs have not even started of course, and we already have instances of some of those who are saying "How soon can you start?" We all gain, and the cost is nothing either to the CROs, the FHSs, ourselves or individual researchers, apart from the time given by our volunteers. Even the cost of the brand new dedicated server on the Internet has been generously donated to us by Rootsweb. That's why it was called FreeREG. (Not because we are giving away free copies of registers!) Although the idea of FreeREG has been bouncing around in my mind for a few years, everything has happened so very quickly since it was actually started in early January. It is excellent that so many people are already co-operating and joining in with the vision. Although I instigated the vision and got it started, I certainly do not consider that the idea was unique or that I own it. Indeed, what I have tried to do is set up an on-going system of co-operation that will outlast me, and in such a way that nobody actually owns FreeREG, but that jointly, the principal participators such as yourself by nature have continued "control" of it. Should you have any further queries, or wish to discuss it further, then please do not hesitate to contact me. Best regards Rod |
|
Part of a discussion between FreeREG (Rod Neep and Mandi Cassidy <jon@thehaunt.ftech.co.uk>) and the Hertfordshire County Archivist. |
> One thing I would add is that I have already
transcribed one
> It might be worth speaking to senior staff about
this project now Indeed! We don't want them to find it threatening in any way at all. The *main* concern of many County Record Offices is about full transcripts or indexes of parish registers getting onto the Internet or being published. We can fully appreciate that concern, and we agree with that. That is definitely not the objective of the FreeREG Project. The actual registers, and the films or fiche themselves are copyright. In the case of Church of England parish registers, the registers (books) are usually the copyright of the present incumbent (vicar) of the church, and the films / microfiche (and prints from them) will usually be the copyright of the County Record Office. Our official line is that FreeREG will not be publishing full transcripts or even indexes of a parish register. Not on the Internet, not on disc, not in printed form, not in any form. All we shall be doing is making the data available for searches of the database for individual researchers seeking their ancestors by name. It won't be possible to "cheat" by searching for, and downloading, all records from one parish. What we would certainly recommend, is that if someone does make a full transcript and index, that he or she freely gives a copy (on disk and in printed form) to the County Record Office. Some Family History Societies may ask you if they can sell copies of your transcript. Many do. That is up to the transcriber of course, but we consider think that a transcript should be offered to the FHS or CRO without expecting anything in return for your hard work. Think of it as a labour of love which will help researchers in the future. A Family History Society should always obtain permission from the Principal Archivist before publishing a transcript or index. It is fully appreciated that some County Record Offices don't like that to happen, whilst some are happy with it. The decision is that of the Principal Archivist.
best regards If you would like to show the Principal Archivist this e-mail, then I would be very happy for you to do so. ... and a follow up In message <00d501bf6787$24942e00$b2cefea9@ftech.co.uk>, Jon & Mandi Cassidy <jon@thehaunt.ftech.co.uk> writes
>Hi Rod WOW!!!! Excellent!!! Well done!!!! That is wonderfully exciting news!
>I am Great. Do remember to give them the same reassurance that their hard work will not be made available as a full transcript.
>The only concern staff had was about checking There is a good case here for double checking the data. See also: Quality Control |
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