Your last statement about travelling to Wilts records office is absolutely ridicalous, In your first paragraph you make the statement you don't know anything about funding arrangements, then you start defending them. With people like about whats the point. You seem to have the "I am alright Jack" philosophy, personaly I care about ensuring that everyone has access to historical material and making sure that the cost if it is necassary is kept low. Anyway you obviously dont know anything about the cost of running a site of this magnitude, it is very low in cost. So there is no need to charge these extortionate prices. Family History is becoming more expensive every month, as more and more of our history is being handed over to private companies, if you want to defend the great British sell off that is up to you. Quite frankly I believe history belongs to us all not to people who can afford it. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Terry Waters-Marsh" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 10:42 PM Subject: [ENG-WILTSHIRE] Cost of Wilts Wills online defended Dear Mike, Without knowing anything about the funding arrangements of the Wilts Wills online, I can defend the cost of providing an item online, irrespective of how the digital images were funded. The cost is in creating an online facility and then paying for the dedicated server capacity to permit online access. Servers are NOT free and are, indeed, quite costly to rent or buy. As such, a fiver per will seems very reasonable. The ScotlandsPeople Wills project cost GBP3.5 when it first went online about 5 years ago and it lost money until it was taken over by another subscription service, despite the digitalisation being funded by the Lottery and the work being donated by the GSU and the Scotland Archives. Looking at it in another way - can you travel to the Wiltshire Record Office, locate the will, copy it and then travel home for less than GBP5? If so, then I would encourage you to do so. Warmest regards, Terry Waters-Marsh FreeCEN Country Coordinator for ENGLAND FreeCEN County Coordinator for SOMERSET (1891), WILTSHIRE, BEDFORDSHIRE, BERKSHIRE, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, CHESHIRE, DORSET, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, HERTFORDSHIRE, HUNTINGDONSHIRE, OXFORDSHIRE, WARWICKSHIRE, WORCESTERSHIRE. Visit the FreeCEN web site at http://www.freecen.org.uk Somerset web page http://freepages.genealogy.rootswseb.com/~somtcen Wiltshire web page http://www.pope-genealogy.me.uk/nwop.htm Warwickshire web page http://www.hunimex.com/warwick/freecens/1861/index_1861.html Worcestershire web page http://www.hunimex.com/warwick/wo-a-p.html OPC for Avebury, Wiltshire General census information http://www.british-genealogy.com/resources/census/index.htm "To forget one's ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root." (Chinese Proverb) -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of mike john Sent: Thursday, 29 January 2009 12:42 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ENG-WILTSHIRE] Dallimore Hi all I am researching Dallimore and the variants Dalimere, Dalmer & Damer around the Seend and Trowbridge area. also Wootten from Bromham My main question is, does anyone know anything about the Wiltshire Wills online, I was under the impression last year that the Wiltshire Records Office received a Heritage Lottery Grant so that they could publish Wiltshire Wills online for all to view, now I see they are charging £5 per download, which in my opinion is disgusting that lottery money should be used by a Public Institution already in receipt of public money, so that they could make more money. As for the cost of £5 I have been purchasing Wills from the National Library of Wales for over 10 years by post, A3 copies costs £2.30 per Will, even the National Archives charge only £3.50. The last time I visited the Wiltshire records office a photocopy of a Will cost far less than £5 Does anyone know exactly how much the Wiltshire Records Office received from the Heritage Lottery Fund, I bet it was enough to scan all the Wills and make them freely available online. Mike John ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.15/1921 - Release Date: 28/01/2009 06:37