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From: "Robin Griffiths" <>
Subject: [ZA-IB] 1820 Settlers
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 19:32:03 +0200


Hi All

In August 1999 I completed entering the entire 1820 Settlers list into
an Excel spreadsheet. It is huge because it lists the Party, the Ship,
the head of family and his occupation and all the family members and
their ages. It comprises 1394 rows by 28 columns of information. Being
an Excel spreadsheet it is fully searchable, sortable by any category
and can be used for statistical analysis (say, average age of children,
how many Marys compared to Elizabeths, etc). However I dare not publish
this on the Internet or offer it to others for fear of violating the
copyright of the various authors including MD Nash. I type with one
finger so you can imagine how long it took me to do all this. It would
be really useful to researchers to have this data available in the Excel
format but until such time as the problem of copyright is solved I
cannot release it.

It raises interesting problems:

If I write a book and use and expand on the research of another author
am I violating his copyright?
If I use archival material am I violating the copyright of the person
who compiled the original document?

Someone like the amazing Mrs Nash is fully entitled to earn money from
her incredible work and I'm very pleased to see that efforts are being
made to have her wonderful book reprinted. However for statistical and
research purposes a computer database is much more useful than a book.

On this list I have seen emails from frustrated listers trying to figure
out where somebody fitted in to a post 1820 marriage. Imagine if you
could instantly call up, say, all Catherines between, say, the ages of 6
and 13 and be fairly sure that one them was the Catherine you were
looking for. Now try searching the book for all Catherines and see how
long it takes.

Anyway, a special note to Ellen Stanton. Been there, done that, got the
T shirt, and I'm a terrible typist! Now if I had your amazing typing
skills I would add later discovered facts such as dates and places of
birth, marriage and death to my spreadsheet.

Regards,

Robin Griffiths Tel(H):+27(0)31 5731729
38 Longwoods Drive Cell:072 4772704
Glenhills
Durban North, 4051
South Africa


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