FreeREG - County Coordinators Information

FreeREG County Coordinators Information Pages

The purpose of these pages is to provide County Coordinators with additional information to assist them in their tasks.

DATA.
One of the most important functions to be performed by the County Coordinator is that of ensuring that their transcribers have data to transcribe. Without that data we simply cannot function.
As most of you will know from reading the general pages of FreeREG, the main source of parish register information is the County Records Office. Most County Records Offices permit researchers to visit their premises and view copies of the parish registers. Usually these copies are in microform, either fiche or films. Sometimes copies of these microform are available in the main local library. There is normally no provision for transcribers or their representaives to borrow parish register microform from County Records Offices. Some Records Offices will sell copies of microform for use by researchers. Unfortunately the costs of these can become excessive for large parishes. While some transcribers have their own fiche reader few transcribers have ready access to the high magnification Microfilm readers.
Should you wish to purchase microform for the use of your transcribers and do not have available sources of funding, contact the Project Manager and he will determine if there are funds available project budget to support the acquisition.
In some cases you may want to create a digital copy of the microform for a transcriber without ready access to a reader. This is technically possible with modern day scanners. FreeREG is currently determining wheither the project has access to such equipment.
Some Family History Societies have acquired fiche or film from their records offices and might be willing to allow members to make transciptions from these microform for FreeREG. This may be difficult to arrange for a number of reasons. For example their agreement with the Records Office may only permit the society to create their own transcript for their own use. A FreeREG transcript may be viewed as contravening this agreement. In addition, some societies are not in favour of the FreeREG activity as they percieve it may reduce their revenues.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has copies of many parish registers as a result of their strong interest in geneology. Copies can be borrowed and viewed at the local family history centres by any researcher. This is an effective way of proceeding for those transcribers living in large communities with an LDS Family History Centre.
THe FreeBMD Society, of which FreeREG is part, has reached an arrangement with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that provides for Coordinators to borrow copies of parish registers from them for the sole purpose of creating an index. These copies must be returned within two years togeather with a copy of the index created. In addition, the coordinator must provide a progress report each six months. In some cases the data will be provided to the coordinator in digital form (as a DVD), thus eliminating the need for microform readers. See: Acquring data from the LDS for detailed information on this process.
APPROVAL FOR THE USE OF COPIES OF REGISTERS.
It is important that you ensure that FreeREG has the approval of the copyright owner of the data before entering data into FreeREG. Clearly this is a complex issue, subject to interpretation and miss-interpretation and changing over time. Put simply, by a layperson, the originator of data file owns the copyright to that "data file" (providing of course that he/she had the right to create that file). This means that there are cascading copyrights making the whole field a nightmare. With parish registers the person (or persons) who created of the register own the copyright to that original register. In the case of Church of England parishes that person is the parish vicar. In most, but not all, cases these registers when complete have been deposited with the County Records Office for safekeeping and with certain rights over these registers. To limit damage to these original registers, the Records Office have created microform copies for users to access (originally fiche, later film and more recently digital). The Records Office own the copyright to these copies. Access to these copies is generally permitted for research and private study purposes. This access can be at the Records Office or sometimes in the County Library or through purchased copies of the copies. If a microform is purchased the Records Ofiice limits the use that can be made of that copy; usually the restictions limit the use to research and private study and specifically prohibit the provision of a copy (duplicate) to other parties. As part of a research activity, it is possible for people to create indices (here we start to get a little grey) to those records. These people then own the copyright to those indices. Thus an index, such as that created by a transcriber, is owned by the transcriber provided he/she had the right to create it in the first place. That transcriber can then give others such as local Family History Societies and FreeREG the right to use their indices and impose what constraints they wish on its use. It is worth noting that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has had a program of copies of parish records for the purpose of geneological study by its members. They have included in their holding copies of original registers, as well as copies of copies made by the Records Offices, transcribers and other organizations. In order that they might make these copies the LDS have agreed to various restrictions on their use including their ability to provide third party copies of their material. This is why it is normally possible only to view LDS materials at their Family History Centres.