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From: "Mary Trevan" <>
Subject: Advance notice of a few changes in the "standard district" list
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 09:43:29 -0600


To all syndicate co-ordinators,

This email is to let you know of a few changes in the standard district list that will be incorporated during the database update that is planned to start next week.

As I am sure you are aware, the volume numbers changed for almost all districts on 1.1.1852 and 1.7.1946, and again for many districts on 1.4.1965 and 1.4.1974. However there are a few districts where the volume number changed at other dates.

Now that we are transcribing the period of 1910 - 1915 we are spanning the period when Dudley was moved from one volume to another at the start of 1913. Until now we have used the information provided by Brett Langston both in his booklet and via the GENUKI pages which showed that Dudley moved from vol 6b to vol 6c in 1913. However, the database and the page ranges derived from it, show otherwise, namely that it was originally in volume 6c and then it was moved to the end of 6b in 1913 and vol 6c was no longer used.

To reflect this change we shall be splitting Dudley into 2 districts. This allows us to specify that in the period 1837-1912 that Dudley was in vol 6c and from 1913 onwards that Dudley was in vol 6b. The end result will be far fewer search results showing up in italics as being from the wrong volume at the cost of 2 adjacent districts for Dudley on the search page, with the date of use displayed after each of them.

However, while investigating the question of what is the correct volume number for Dudley we (well, mostly Jeremy) have looked up a few hundred entries and for many we have found that the transcriber has accepted the volume number as offerred by the WinBMD (or SpeedBMD) picklists and has not followed the TWYS principle. So we will be submitting many corrections to Kevin shortly for such entries.

For completeness and consistency, there is a similar change in a handful of Dorset entries that occurred in 1956, and so we will be making the equivalent changes for them too. (Bridport, Poole, Sturminster). At the same time we will also adjust a few start dates to match the data in the database / page range results where they differ from Brett's information (eg Hammersmith starting in 1915 rather than 1913 as at present).

When the next database update is nearing completion I intend to mail the ADMINS list to inform the transcribers about the normal situation for Dudley being that it was in vol 6c until 1912 and that it moved to vol 6b in 1913, and them to pay special attention to Dudley and where necessary to add it with vol 6b to their picklist in WinBMD / SpeedBMD.

Allan, maybe this can be a topic for your "tip of the day" list as well (ie TWYS, even if that means adding to your pick list for Dudley vol 6b)

Regards

Mary Trevan
District Aliasing Team Co-Ordinator


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