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Archiver > DPS-SYDNEY > 2002-08 > 1030165900


From: "len wells" <>
Subject: Re: Indexing Latest
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 15:11:40 +1000
References: <3.0.5.32.20020823215924.00bc1e70@pop.ozemail.com.au>


My vote goes to the state-based index. I think the advantages out weigh the
disadvantages.

Len
Port Macquarie
http://www.users.bigpond.com/ljwells

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Graham" <>
To: <>
Sent: Friday, 23 August 2002 9:59
Subject: Indexing Latest


> The data has now gone to Rootsweb, and should be loaded and available in
> the next few days. Stay posted for details of the new URL.
>
> All papers have been included, even our special friend, the
"Courier-Mail".
> The Sydney DPS has donated all our data to Rootsweb, with no restrictions
> on its use by Rootsweb. We will, of course, continue to supply updates to
> them - probably on a quarterly basis.
>
> The index now has a new title - the whole index is called The Ryerson
> Index, instead of this name just being applied to the SMH portion. I
expect
> that, in years to come, The Ryerson Index will become a well-known name in
> Australian genealogy.
>
> Because Rootsweb runs on Linux rather than NT, we can't make use of the
> work that Henry did on generating a searchable database site. It's a great
> pity, because the demo Henry gave me was very impressive. If anyone wants
> to have a crack at providing a searchable database web site under Linux,
> feel free to give it a go <g>
>
> Some stats:
>
> The web site now occupies 4,851 pages. When first generated it occupied
> 263Mb, but thanks to a snazzy litle program called HTMLShrinker, this has
> been cut to 109Mb, which zips to about 15Mb for transmission to Rootsweb.
> There are 396,792 entries for NSW papers, and 13,347 for Qld.
>
> And now, a question for you all.
>
> I have been thinking of producing a single consolidated index for all the
> entries in the papers in NSW which we are indexing, rather than have
> separate indexes for each paper. This is easy to do, and would result in
> each entry having a link to the paper as part of the publication details,
> eg (pub.10AUG2002 SMH), (pub.14AUG2002 IM) etc. The newspaper code would
be
> a hyperlink to the page containing details (including dates covered) for
> that paper.
>
> The big advantage I see in this method is the ability to search all of NSW
> in one pass, rather than having to check each paper individually.
>
> The biggest disadvantage is that the small papers like the "Hawkesbury
> Gazette" (72 entries) would just disappear into a site containing over
> 400,000 entries. While this is not a problem for a specific name search,
it
> does remove the ability to browse through all deaths by locality.
>
> So, what do you all think? Do we stick with the individual paper format,
or
> do we move to a single state-based index?
>
> John
>
> John Graham
>
> GENEALOGY FROM GERRINGONG - http://www.ozemail.com.au/~johngrah/
>
> SYDNEY DPS - http://www.ozemail.com.au/~johngrah/dps.html
> (home of the "Herald" and "Telegraph" Death Indexes)
>

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