Hi, When I transcribe the BMD scans (the later printed rather than earlier hand-written indexes) after entering all the records using SpeedBMD, I go back and double check what I've entered before sending them off. To make this a lot quicker, I've written a program which displays the scan and "in front" a box containing a BMD record from the transcription file I've produced using SpeedBMD. What I then see is the line from the original scan and just below it, what I've transcribed - I can very quickly spot any differences especially silly mistakes, such as typing "Amy" instead of "May", selecting Plympton instead of Plymouth or missing out the 3rd forename initial. I then press a key and the box moves down to below the next line in the scan and also displays the next record from the BMD file and so on. The program won't let me amend the SCA file - I've deliberately not included this - but I can "flag" an entry and then display or print out the details. What I am after is a few volunteers to try out the program and see if you think it helps - if so, I'll make it generally available and support it. If you're willing to try it out for me, please email me directly at [email protected] I've set up a temporary web page with all the details and you can download the program from there. The program is just under 100kb (but you may also need to download a larger standard Microsoft file unless its already on your computer). There are a few restrictions at the moment - it only works with Windows 98 and ME and only with the three column printed births and wedding indexes. Cheers, David Lang email: [email protected]

To all transcibers, My syndicate have moved from printed material onto handwritten scans. Allocations started about a fortnight ago and around 300 have so far been assigned. I have noticed that the transcibers response to the change of work divides into three, first, the smallest group who have responded to the the change and seem to be enjoying the additional challenge it presents, a second but also small group whose response and work rate has not changed and the third largest group whose work rate has slowed significantly or who have taken fright and stopped transcribing. So the kite I am flying is to ask whether we would serve the project and volunteers best by forming one or more specialist syndicates made up from those who prefer transcribing from hand written material? Come on transcribers what are your views? John

Hi All I am in John Slann's Syndicate and am in possibly a unique position in that I know another tranny, we joined together. When doing typed/printed her rate was prodigious at least 350 a day. Since starting find the maze centre - sorry, hand written I don't think she has finished one sheet of 40. Last night she told me she spent ages doing 12 lines, she was fed up. She downloaded one of my pages and was shocked at how easy mine were. She had no standard for what was acceptable and what was not. Also there is no doubt that the more hand written one does the easier it is but if the first you get is bad then the experience is not there and you never get the experience. The quality of the scans, 1846M1, is poor. All suffer from light at the top to very dark at the bottom; it is unusual to be able to transcribe the last line. A lot of the scans show bad scratching of the original which no amount of rescanning will cure. Maybe John's suggestion of a syndicate of Martyrs is the only solution. Bob Phillips ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Slann" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 10:06 AM Subject: Kite flying > To all transcibers, > > My syndicate have moved from printed material onto handwritten scans. > Allocations started about a fortnight ago and around 300 have so far been > assigned. > > I have noticed that the transcibers response to the change of work divides > into three, first, the smallest group who have responded to the the change > and seem to be enjoying the additional challenge it presents, a second but > also small group whose response and work rate has not changed and the third > largest group whose work rate has slowed significantly or who have taken > fright and stopped transcribing. > > So the kite I am flying is to ask whether we would serve the project and > volunteers best by forming one or more specialist syndicates made up from > those who prefer transcribing from hand written material? > > Come on transcribers what are your views? > > John > > > > > ============================== > Visit Ancestry.com for a FREE 14-Day Trial and enjoy access to the #1 > Source for Family History Online. Go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/subscribe/subscribetrial1y.asp?sourcecode=F11HB >

>To all transcibers, > >My syndicate have moved from printed material onto handwritten scans. >Allocations started about a fortnight ago and around 300 have so far been >assigned. > >I have noticed that the transcibers response to the change of work divides >into three, first, the smallest group who have responded to the the change >and seem to be enjoying the additional challenge it presents, a second but >also small group whose response and work rate has not changed and the third >largest group whose work rate has slowed significantly or who have taken >fright and stopped transcribing. > >So the kite I am flying is to ask whether we would serve the project and >volunteers best by forming one or more specialist syndicates made up from >those who prefer transcribing from hand written material? > >Come on transcribers what are your views? > >John I have just finished transcribing 49 hand-written pages (Dec 1845 Births, from 1845B4-A-H-0002.tif to 1845B4-A-H-0050.tif) in 12 days. The condition of the original index pages before being photographed vary considerably. The ink has almost disappeared over large areas of the initial pages of the A - H volume. A UV lamp would be required to decipher the writing. Other pages are in such a good condition that a page (40 entries) can be transcribed with no uncertainties in a few minutes. The quality of most pages lies somewhere between these limits. A contributory factor to the quality of the scan is the condition of the microfilm. Virtually all films appear to be scratched to a greater or lesser extent. The narrowest scratches cut up the characters whilst the broadest ones can erase whole characters. I print out every transcribed page and check every line against the original indexes in the FRC, London, so that my transcriptions have hardly any uncertainties. Over 26 pages each with 40 entries the number of corrections/additions per page varied from 1 to 50 with a mean (average) of 12.1. I haven't yet checked the last 20 pages. I wouldn't be happy to upload pages with a large number of uncertainties, which would be the case if I was unable to check and correct my transcriptions in this way. I'm not surprised that transcribers are put off by these scans of films of hand-written pages in which both paper and film media are often in less than ideal condition. One solution might be to set up a special London FRC Syndicate whose sole task would be receive transcriptions from other syndicates for checking against the original hand-written indexes in the FRC. Even if enough members could be found for such a syndicate there would be a considerable printing load on each member. To avoid this perhaps the transcripts could be laser-printed centrally and hard copies distributed by post. -- Regards Dick Jones Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. U.K. <[email protected]>