Saturday, February 24, 2007

COCP Newsletter No 18



Hello from Cornwall. As usual, the picture has nothing to do with anything. It shows me and five grandchildren on my birthday last year.

Although things might seem very quiet, we have been getting on with the project. Since the beginning of the year we have uploaded:

1851
West Looe Joan Oliver & Frances Kenshole
Redruth Asylum Joan Oliver & Frances Kenshole
Saltash (completion piece) Moira Hurst & Ken Hosking

1861
1579 (completion piece) Shirley Franklin & Maxine Cadzow
1584 (last piece) Carrol Parfait, Maxine Cadzow & Marion Paul

1871
2224 St Stephen John Warren & Julia Mays
2257 Newlyn East Faye Ammermann & Jan Lewis
2318 Redruth Caroline Buckland & Ken Hosking
2338 Penzance Paul Archie Courtney-Williams, Frances Kenshole & Carrol Parfait

1881
2297 St Columb David Trounce
2303 St Austell David Trounce
2321 Wendron Althea Johnson
2323 Wendron Althea Johnson
2324 St Keverne Althea Johnson
2325 St Keverne Althea Johnson
2326 Breage Althea Johnson


In the pipeline are 7 1871 pieces and half a dozen 1881. Redruth 1851 was a very large piece - over 10,000 records - and puts the 1851 within a couple of percent of completion.

Free Census rebuilt its database on the 21st February and we have now contributed 1.5 million records - some 16% of the total.

The online parish register project continues to grow - nearly 480,000 records online. It is now possible to upload all or some of the details from post-1837 marriage certificates using an online submission form. Forms for births & deaths will follow. A number of volunteers are busy inputting the Phillimore marriage lists and extraction of hatches, matches & dispatches from the West Briton transcription project continues apace.


Sunday, February 04, 2007

NWOCP Newsletter No 5

This is aimed at the 1841 volunteers, but it is mostly valid for any year.

When a parish spreadsheet comes in, I reformat it as .csv and load it into FCTools. The diagnostic package details the errors & warnings. Errors have to be fixed, but warnings may not be serious enough to do anything about. But I usually do them with the 1841 parishes as they are so small. I then marry them to a data file and produce a zipped file for checking. I load this into the checking software to see it loads OK and then send it off to the checker.

There is only one checker for the 1841 - our web site host - John Pope. He produces a checked zip, often accompanied by colourful comments, and sends it to me.

I load this into Valdrev and validate it. The output zip from Valdrev then goes back into FCTools for a final burst of corrections. The refined output zip is sent to John, who turns it into html and uploads it to his web site.

When a whole Hundred is done (we have done two so far), I run all the validated zips back through FCTools to produce a series of spreadsheets. I stitch these all together and run the resulting giant spreadsheet back through FCTools to produce a final validated file. This goes back to John for him to create the html. Once I have looked at that and re-assured myself that all looks well, I send the data zip off to a guy name Bill O'Reilly. Amongst other things, he looks after the upload to Free Census side of things for me. You need to be a Windows user to do that and I am not one of those.

Common errors. I am not saying that you all make them or that anyone makes them all - but they come up again and again.

1. Do not use question marks or any other such characters anywhere except in the notes Col Y.

2. Make sure that all households have a schedule number - zero. Make sure that all uninhabited dwellings & public buildings have their own record complete with sched zero.

3. No entry must be on more than one line. If you cannot abbreviate an address for instance onto one line, then put some of it in the notes column.

4. Stick to the plan on folio numbers. Pages without a number take that of the preceding page.

5. If you are uncertain of anything - flag it up.

6. Addresses must only be entered against a schedule. They must not appear in the middle of a household. If a household straddles a page break; backtrack to the previous page and enter the address there.

7. Col T - county of birth - must have a 3-digit code from the table in the Free Census Field descriptions.

8. There is no need to use capitals or put the "y" after ages. You must put "m, w or d" if they are applicable though.

9. All records must be transcribed, including those crossed out.

Don't forget to keep an eye on the blog on http://medeschole.blogspot.com/