I don't wish to pre-empt what the top table might say, but the following is what was asked and answered last September. Perhaps all that is needed is confirmation that the plan is still on schedule. Where do the scans come from and why don't they come through in ascending order of year? Answer: Various sources! 1866-1900 Marriages - largely from Darryl Bonk of Canada who scanned films held by his FHS. 1866-1900 Births/Deaths - films bought by FreeBMD and scanned by our contacts. 1837-1865 second hand films bought by Ancestry and Scanned by them. Many of the films in this range are poor quality and unsuitable for scanning. They will eventually be replaced by FreeBMD purchased films. Early films contain 40/80 names per page, as opposed to 325 for later years, which means that it cost a LOT more to buy them and longer to scan them. We are embarking on a project *NOW* to complete scanning in a logical order. We can do this now because we are in a sufficiently stable financial position to do so. The plan is; 1) Install additional hardware to handle the extra scans 2) Complete scanning of all years all events from 1910 to 1866 working backwards. 3) Complete scanning of all years marriages 1865 to 1837 marriages working backwards, including replacing scans of poor quality 4) Likewise for Births and Deaths 5) Start to work forwards from 1911. This may seem a slightly odd order, but it is designed to ensure that we keep a sufficient stock of scanned images on hand at all times. Time-scales are always difficult, but current guess is new hardware on-line by end October 03, Source 1866-1910 on-hand by same time 1866-1910 scans available gradually from November to January 04 1837-1856 marriage source on hand by early January 04 1837-1856 scans available February - June 2004 Beyond that time-scales are too vague to be useful John Fairlie Mail us at ..... john@fairlie.plus.com john.fairlie@blueyonder.co.uk Home page... http://www.fairlie.plus.com -----Original Message----- From: Barry Johnson [mailto:saint.cybi@virgin.net] Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2004 12:36 PM To: FREEBMD-DISCUSS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Marriages 1861 - 63 Marriages for the 1860s appear to be the Cinderella of FreeBMD, with none of the 1861-63 pages allocated at all. I don't understand why so much effort is going into the transcribing of pages from the C20 when the latter are so much easier to look up (more entries per page) and read (printed rather than handwritten). I have an interest to declare - a missing marriage from these years, possibly involving some very inventive surname spelling. I've uploaded the results of my GRO Index searches from 1854 to 1863, involving some 400 entries, but that's the merest drop in the ocean, and the syndicate I'm transcribing for mainly covers births and deaths. Please someone, start a syndicate for 1861-63 marriages. I'll be your first volunteer! (And in answer to the inevitable - and reasonable - question: I'm afraid I don't have the time, or probably the expertise, to set up and run a syndicate.) Barry Johnson Monmouthshire ============================== Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237 --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.620 / Virus Database: 399 - Release Date: 11/03/2004 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.620 / Virus Database: 399 - Release Date: 11/03/2004

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 13:33:25 -0000, you wrote: >I don't wish to pre-empt what the top table might say, but the following is >what was asked and answered last September. Perhaps all that is needed is >confirmation that the plan is still on schedule. Thanks John, Things are still pretty much working to that plan. The earlier source is on hand, and I expect the first scans from it sometime in April. -- Dave Mayall