RootsChat.Com

General => The Common Room => Topic started by: madbadrob on Monday 13 September 04 23:20 BST (UK)

Title: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: madbadrob on Monday 13 September 04 23:20 BST (UK)
Okay I was wondering what people would buy on CD (genealogical items) if everything was available.  Would you prefer to have parish register transcripts, census transcripts, bastardy bonds etc etc. 
Also what preference would you prefer to see this data in Access Excell PDF etc

rob
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: Lisa on Tuesday 14 September 04 00:43 BST (UK)
Id like to see it all on CD.  How's that then.  the more the better for posterity.  By the way, my best friend from school in Australia was a Wyatt and she always said her dad was english.
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: trish251 on Tuesday 14 September 04 09:59 BST (UK)
Hi Rob

If you are talking English roots it would have to be census data. Tis the only way to put families together. For Scotland and Australia I think bdm data is more useful. (Australia has virtually no Census data)

Trish
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: Steve Ley on Tuesday 14 September 04 10:52 BST (UK)
I would prefer to see all of it on Disc in this order Census, BDM, Trade directories, court records etc.
Some of the transcripts i have have put the info in 3 formats, Access,CSV and one i cannot remember , that is how i would prefer it.
But i would rather have the actual images.

Steve.
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: Welsh Jen on Tuesday 14 September 04 11:23 BST (UK)
I don't think it would be wise to put everything on disk. I know the majority would wish it for convienience sake etc, but disks are still quite new and as many of these historical documents are SO important it would be unwise to do this, so another format is necessary to preserve documents

 :)
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: Steve Ley on Tuesday 14 September 04 11:40 BST (UK)
CD'd have been around for over twenty years and are quite reliable. if the data is put onto disc then you will have thousands of copies of the important documents so if anything was to happen like fire or flood (which has damaged a local history centre quite recently) people would still be able to access the data.
One company i know of Archive CD Books which is a non-profit company, after it has scanned a book (directories etc) restores them to their former glory and then donates them to libraries and FHS.


Steve.
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: Welsh Jen on Tuesday 14 September 04 13:18 BST (UK)
I can see your point, however my personal opinion is that 20 years is still young when talking about historical documents.

Putting everything on disk format is not the 100% way forward when preserving such important information.
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: Clincher on Tuesday 14 September 04 15:00 BST (UK)
I agree with Steve Ley. It would be wonderful if actual images were available of everything: census, parish registers, wills. Can I say on-line or is that being greedy?
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: madbadrob on Tuesday 14 September 04 16:28 BST (UK)
Ok let me interject here.  IO wasn't thinking of the actual images such as one is finding thx to Stepping Stones Archive CD books S and N etc I was thinking more transcripts.  Parish registers which I guess is what people mean by BDM to me are far more important than census.  Why?  Because they record something that is fact and are not transcripts of someone elses words which census are.  I am sure we can all say that we have seen census information where it says great granny nelly was 18 in 1861 and 22 in 1871 etc. 

I myself find it much easier to build a family up through baptism records all be it very time consuming. 

Thx for the replies so far

rob
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: Steve Ley on Tuesday 14 September 04 16:37 BST (UK)
20 years is young, but we are not talking about destroying the originals once they have been put onto a different format. Every format could be destroyed or damaged but if the original is in the hands of many people in a different format instead of a few people having the original book then the information contained will be safe for many generations.

Steve.
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: BarryBear on Wednesday 15 September 04 02:00 BST (UK)
 ;) I'd like someone to send me a cd with my entire, complete, highly detailed familytree on it with pictures and everything. Then I might get off my lazy bottom and do something around the house, or even go out maybe :o lol
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: Clincher on Wednesday 15 September 04 20:42 BST (UK)
But, Barry, how would you know it was the real McCoy unless you Did It Yourself?
Title: Re: What would you prefer to buy on Cd
Post by: BarryBear on Thursday 16 September 04 00:11 BST (UK)
 ;D Clincher, if you could see my desk, you would wonder if I am me, sometimes I do.lol.