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Archiver > ENG-WISBECH-AREA > 2008-04 > 1208220321


From: "John Bland" <>
Subject: Re: [WISBECH] A Call for Action for bridges to be built
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:45:21 +0100
References: <48037D09.1040106@azzurum.com>
In-Reply-To: <48037D09.1040106@azzurum.com>


Hello,

Your raising of this issue is matched by some debate amongst Family History
Societies in general. Why is it that despite Family History being more
popular than ever, there are dwindling membership numbers. I don't think
that the freebies are the main threat. It is the commercial sites such as
Genesreunited and Ancestry. The latter has certainly affected sales of
census indexes. This is despite the fact that Ancestry indexes are more
often as not compiled by someone in India with no interest of understanding
of British History and copperplate handwriting. As a result the indexes on
Ancestry leave a lot to be desired. Yet how many of us cannot live without
Ancestry.co.uk ? I know it is essential for me. How many Family History
Societies will even bother to produce census indexes for the 1911 census.
Less than 1901 I bet.

Thought I'd throw that into the melting pot. I will comment on your other
points below:-


>
> Hi Everyone
>
> Many moon ago I launched a site named Wisbech and the Fenlands. By
> ignorance on my part (an poor grammar) the later part of the name
> "Fenlands" was incorrect. It should have been Fens instead of
> Fenlands.
>
> Then over there is this site has grown to become a major entry point
> for
> research in the Fens around Wisbech. One major motive was to link or
> coordinate Fens research. Another reason was that it may in return
> help
> me in my own research since I live in Australia.
>
> When Mike Wagner kindly emailed me scans on my birthday in 2006,
> instead
> of it being a trill, it was more of a anticlimax. It sort of broke my
> spirit. The first link on the links page of the Wisbech and the
> Fenlands
> site is this.
>
> http://www.fenlandfhs.org.uk/
>
>
> The odd thing about this is that visiting this site will show no link
> to
> Wisbech and the Fenlands.

I am not a member of the FFHS or Peterborough FHS. The attitudes of FHS to
freepages tend to differ and that is down to the committees of the relevant
Society. The Genuki pages and Lincsgen Mailing list have a good working
relationship with the LFHS. Why the FFHS or PFS don't have a similar
relationship with the mailing lists that cover their respective patches I
don't know.

>This is the situation that is faced with
> many
> sites like FreeREG. It is the great divide between the FHS and the
> freebies. I myself am a member of the FFHS and have purchased
> Microfiche
> from the CFHS. My outlook is that there should be bridges build
> between
> the FHS and the freebies sites.
>
> The problem for the FHS is that the freebies sites takes potential
> revenue away since a researcher does not have to purchase Microfiche
> etc
> from the FHS.

In order for Family History Societies to survive and flourish, revenue from
Publication sales are a key ingredient. Without it many Family History
Societies would die. This would mean that there is one less body to argue
for as much funding from Local Authorities as possible to be given to County
Archive Offices. Without that funding many Archive Offices would be forced
to cut staff and possibly their hours, and inevitably increase costs of any
documents ordered. Some Authorities are forward thinking in that they have
online catalogues of their holdings through which you can browse online and
order copy documents. However these tend to be in the large conurbations. In
rural areas such as Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk this will be
longer to come as one factor that rural Counties have to account for in
their budgets is the cost of fuel for transport. Result is that when it
comes to reviewing local Council Taxes, they are threatened with having
their proposed increase capped by central Government. Without Family History
Societies and other bodies, Archive, Library and Museums would be too easy a
target. This is one reason why copyright is so important for Societies. It
is not to protect the publication so much as to protect the Societies. They
are non profit making charities, and as such any profit is rolled back into
the Society. Without a network of Family History Societies, Family History
research in the UK would be so much harder, as until the age of the internet
there was no mechanism for researchers of the same families to contact each
other apart from Family History Societies. The pioneering work of the 1970's
and 1980's laid the foundations for what we have today. Without it we would
only just be laying those foundations.

>This is like huge wall to hurdle if you live overseas.
> I
> myself would have to join over 40 FHS in Great Britain and buy 1000s
> of
> microfiche etc. to be able to better my research.

Microfiche by their nature is limited as to the amount of information they
contain. Plus access to a Microfiche Reader can be a problem for many.
However you do not have to join a large number of Societies to buy
publications. They can be brought centrally from Genfair
http://www.genfair.co.uk/ In addition, many Societies are now recognising
that electronic media CD is a cheaper form of producing publications that
contain more data. However the publications of any Society can only be as
wide ranging as the number of volunteers it has. Many Societies are still
transcribing Parish Registers and have not gone on to other things such as
Wills, Poor Law Records etc. It is therefore important that any
transcription work is co-ordinated. Those Societies that have been unable to
get the volunteers will therefore be rather peeved if a freebie comes along
that matches a publication that they have not finished.

Personally I feel that it is the role of us in the UK to transcribe those
records that are ONLY available in paper form at UK Archive Offices and have
not been filmed or digitised in any way. Parish Registers can be transcribed
any where in the World and FreeReg will eventually see to this, and those
Societies who do not see this will ultimately fail, it is sad to say. It is
down to the members of those Societies to compare what their Society is
doing with those that have more foresight.

However local non County Societies have some unique challenges. For example
the population of Peterborough in 1801 was 4075. By 1811 this had increased
to 4417. Thus the majority of members of that Society will probably have
ancestors who came from elsewhere. Indeed now I have discovered two
Peterborough lines at exactly this timeframe, I may have more Peterborough
roots than many present day members of that Society! The problems of
Peterborough are unique. A large modern day City that saw major growth with
the Railways, yet most of the records are 40 miles away!

It is inevitable that County Societies will be more successful in bringing
out publications covering other sources through a wider membership base. In
our patch we have two County Societies that are doing this, and the other
two (both beginning with N) that appear to be less active.


>My research has
> largely been possible because of a lady in Sydney. The parishes in
> question all running north to south are Walsoken, Emneth, Outwell and
> Upwell. If you're an overseas researcher then you will have great
> difficultly in researching your ancestors from these parishes.
>
> Apart from myself I have great gratitude for Carol Markillie who has
> tirelessly transcribed over 50,000s parish records. I have the
> permission from her to include such transcriptions into the Wisbech
> Index. The first join installment will be 700 marriages for the
> parish
> of Elm.

It is because of the unique nature of the Fens that your efforts should be
welcomed. Indeed if it frees up volunteer resources at a Family History
Society, we all win, provided those volunteers can be encouraged to take the
long trip to the relevant County Record Office to undertake other projects.

Some worthy projects were completed years ago by volunteers. Peterborough
Library hold bound a complete transcription of the Registers of St John the
Baptist Church that is bound over three or four volumes and was donated by
an American several years ago. Of course these are only available by a
personal visit to Peterborough. If only it was in a digital form. It just
didn't exist. If this work had been done in co-ordination with the
appropriate Family History Society, then we all could have benefitted from a
microfiche/CD publication.


> Another big player is the person behind this wonderful site.
>
> http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tinstaafl/
>
> Also of special note is John Bland who first proposed a much needed
> list
> for the Peterborough area.
>
> There is also Ann McClean efforts and her site.
>
> http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cawthorn/FHmisc/fhpage1.html
>
>
> Also there is Farne Hunt who gave me her transcriptions of the 1891
> census of Moulton which I indexed.
>
> http://contueor.com/wisbech/parishes/moulton/cen91.htm


Those who put their pages on Rootsweb are leaving something for the future
as it is extremely unlikely that Rootsweb will ever fail. I have experience
of a very good site in the Black Country suddenly died because one of its
founders who paid the Bills suddenly decided he no longer wanted to. The
result was that several years of work was lost. Anyone who puts up anything
on the web should ask themselves, will this remain in cyberspace as an
archive for future generations?

> This list could continue but I will run out of room in this message.
> I
> have neglected to mention a few names but a search of my various
> webmail
> accounts would be required (one name is Sheila WB). My call of action
> is
> to help set up these bridges that are missing (start the ball
> rolling).

It is up to those members of Family History Societies to put questions to
their Society's committee if it is felt that their Society should do more to
embrace the army of volunteers who give their time up for free. I would like
to think that the Society I belong to is doing all it possibly could.

> I also started a submission page on my site and have receive many
> 1000s
> of submissions but as I was to come to realization that most of these
> are un-usable since it require me to edit every entry and insert each
> field into it's proper place in an excel database. This is why I
> haven't
> made much progress with the many 10,000s of transcriptions that Carol
> Markillie has posted on various mailing lists. I am open for
> submissions
> but they need to be in a comma delimited format. This format is seen
> on
> the submission page of my site.
>
> http://contueor.com/wisbech/submissions/
>
> One example of a comma delimited format is.
>
> 1756,Mary Ann,Johnson,John,Smith,Mary,John,illegitimage
>
> This is the same format that FreeREG uses.
>
> On my end a have one major problem and that is this site.
>
> http://contueor.com/wisbech/
>
> This is a broken web site and cannot be fixed. Hopefully soon I will
> use
> my newly found web coding skills to replace this broken site with a
> newly coded site. So what I can bring to the meeting point (the
> bridge)
> are these skills.
>
> 1. Building correctly coded website that can easy be changed and
> maintained.
>
> 2. Creating Indexes.
>
> 3. Knowledge and experience with web hostings and web servers.
>
> 4. And of course transcribing those water stained registers (my
> love).
This is something that should be embraced. Life is not so easy that you can
simply post a document produced in Word complete with images on the web. It
is a skill that few of us have. Those who do not appreciate risk much.

Thank You Alan.

John R G Bland
Spalding

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