Jacky, Although this is off-topic for this list here is a copy of a post I sent to the Discuss list today on this same subject. This is only my thought on the subject not an 'official' FreeBMD response. I think that the real question is how were these pages made clearer? If they are the result of scanning the originals at a higher resolution etc then they are possibly useful, however if they are the result of a software process such as de-speckle, etc, as those on other well known sites are, then they are unlikely to be reliable for transcription purposes. These processes use a mathematical process to determine if each pixel is likely to be part of a character or noise etc on the image and remove the latter, as such they have the possibility of making a character appear to be what it isn't. Whether it is better to transcribe an image altered in this way than one which is very difficult to read is another question but that is why we use symbols to represent illegible characters. Once you start dealing with altered images then what was previously illegible may now appear legible but one cannot tell that it is wrong, at least the present method gives a warning that there i! s something here which may not be quite right. I know that FreeBMD are in the process of having some of our poorer quality pages re-scanned and this is a much better solution than using image processing to "improve" them. Ian ----- Original Message ----- From: Jacky Middleton To: FreeBMD-Admins-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2006 11:39 AM Subject: FAO Administrators. A humble suggestion Dear Administrators, I feel a bit of a traitor writing this Email, but I fancy that other transcribers are having the same thought. Now that we know what CAN be read on the original index after seeing Ancestry's scans/photographs, it is going to be hard to work from the FreeBMD scans. We shall all know that Ancestry subscribers will be able to read things that are illegible to us. What fools we will all look! AND it will undermine the user's confidence in FreeBMD. May I suggest, most humbly, that the administrators negotiate with Ancestry to use their images. FreeBMD could provide the army of willing volunteers. I'm sure that all of the transcribers would be more than happy with that arrangement. Again I cringe and apologise for this interference, but I feel driven to suggest it. Jacky Middleton in Ancaster, Lincolnshire ==== FreeBMD-Admins Mailing List ==== FreeBMD - http://FreeBMD.rootsweb.com ============================== Search the US Census Collection. Over 140 million records added in the last 12 months. Largest online collection in the world. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13965/rd.ashx