Peter B: Is your posting in favor of paying.?

Hi Jim, Most of the family history societies who produce useful material for researchers are UK registered charities and therefore cannot make a profit. However they also cannot operate on fresh air. Tomorrow I will be making a round trip journey of 90 miles as will about 8 other people from various parts of East Yorkshire to record MIs that will eventually be published by the EYFHS. This will be the fourth visit to this churchyard that we have made. All of us pay our own expenses. The information is then checked against the PRs and return visits to the churchyard by other volunteers. It is then keyed in by a lady who has been doing this for the past 25 years, voluntarily. The information will then be checked again before being passed to the publications lady who will do all the other things necessary to get it ready for the printer, she also has been doing this voluntarily for 25 years. When the booklets are finally to hand we deposit free copies in local libraries and archive offices for people to view as they will. More volunteers at their own expense then at various times take the approximately 200 other MI booklets that have been produced in the same way over the past 25 years to various locations across Yorkshire such as the recent York Family History Fair and make them available at minimal cost to anyone who wishes to buy one. They do this to recover the cost of printing and to provide the money to be able to produce other things such as the indexing of the 1861 census that is currently well under way. Imagine then that somebody buys one of these booklets and then starts advertising that (they) will give the information away regardless of breach of copyright and the fact that it will undermine further sales of the booklet and the future projects that these charitable family history societies are willing to do. Pound for pound these booklets must represent the best value anywhere. The EYFHS even operates a system where all the MIs from the 200 burial areas published are indexed on a database which can be searched to see where a particular name occurs. After all that we do and the personal costs that we incur along the way we are not willing to pay the printing costs out of our own pockets just to save someone somewhere spending a couple of pounds or dollars. Check the EYFHS website www.eyfhs.org.uk for a full list of the MI booklets that are available for sale online all of which have been produced in the way outlined above. I think its called playing fair. Peter B ----- Original Message ----- From: <Jims505@aol.com> To: <ENG-EAST-YORKS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: 11 July 2002 01:45 Subject: [ERY] Family history > Peter B: > > Is your posting in favor of paying.? > > ______________________________