RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Trancesgirl on Saturday 28 December 13 11:14 GMT (UK)
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I am administrator for the Wiltshire OPC project. The original project was the idea of a group of Genealogists from the County of Cornwall who had a concept of providing genealogy material for each county online in one place. The information was to be gathered by individual volunteers who would adopt a parish of their own and build on that information. This information can then be used for free by others.
Several projects nationwide have been started most of which follow the Cornwall concept while others have expanded the idea.
The Wiltshire project has had problems in past years where the original co-ordinator left the project and the mantle was taken up by a new co-ordinator. She rebuilt the site and struggled to hold down a full time job and co-ordinate the site. Enter myself who took over as administrator leaving the co-ordinator to deal with the technical side of things.
The co-ordinator at the outset was and still is an amateur web-designer and has learnt to cope with the site being hacked and offline whilst rebuilt for a few months. Since its last regeneration technically things have gone well.
The project now has some 60 volunteers having adopted many parishes between them. Some have a lot of content others have little since our policy is that we all work in our time and at our own pace.
We do not profess to being 100% accurate hence we have a clearly sited notice that any information published has not been verified and that original sources should always be consulted especially if being used for professional research assignments or for educational purposes. We provide a guide to these items. Wherever possible we try to check but staffing levels and no funds mean that we cannot always do this.
In recent weeks the Wiltshire project in particular has been "attacked" by a professional individual who appears to have appointed himself as the Wiltshire County Genealogy Police.
We appreciate criticism good or bad but would wish that to be directed at us via our website rather than on public forums such as this.
We find it difficult to get volunteers to help us as it is without people advertising our project to assist individuals "as useful as oil on water". And advertising comparisons to our hard worked documents with his own (of which comparison for bmds etc are done with the aid of Family Search which any seasoned researcher should know includes items from the old IGI that were published by family historians themselves and many errors occurred.
Our project transcripts are sourced from mainly the parish records at the WSHC either from fiche copies or as in our Salisbury Cathedral records from photograph images of the original registers held in the Cathedral itself.
Everyone I know is allowed an opinion. But is it right to deride in public something which is trying to help others. Our project now has in the region of 1600 regular registered users. (You do not need to register to view records but need to register if contacting an OPC). Since February 2012 the web site has had a total of 119270 hits. Quite impressive for a site dubbed as "useful as Oil on Water".
If anyone would like more information about setting up an OPC project for their own county or would like to volunteer for the Wiltshire Project please get in touch either through the Wiltshire Web Site or a private message on here
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As a grateful user of the Dorset OPC I wish to thank you and all OPC'ers for all your valuable time and effort.
There several other OPC contributors, co-ordinators and administrators who are also members of RootsChat.
We have in the past "flagged up" some other OPC-projects and I summarised some of them here:
Topic: Online Parish Clerks - OPC
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=46825.0
And in case the link gets lost, you can find it here:
RootsChat Reference Library (http://surname.rootschat.com/lexicon/index.php) => Lexicon (click here) (http://surname.rootschat.com/lexicon/reflib-lexicon.php?letter=O)
Bob
To all you wonderful on-line parish clerks
I think we should have an on-line parish clerk appreciation day :)
Sue
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I think that all the opc volunteers deserve a big thank you, and instead of people criticizing they would do better to volunteer to help, maybe then they would not be so free with their criticism. Well done opc helpers and Thank You.
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As someone who has been greatly helped by OPC volunteers I am disgusted that anyone should slight them..........I have always found these people to be very helpful and the information on the sites very useful.........we should be grateful that there are people willing to give up their time to help others.
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I agree with the above comments, I've found OPC sites very valuable, my thanks to all the volunteers
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Could someone please explain what OPC stands for and what the volunteers do?
Presumably some form of transcribing?
Thanks
Dawn M
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OPC is Online Parish Clerk.
I, too, would also like to thank the OPC's for their wonderful work. having looked at some original images of parish pages I take my hats off to all who transcribe what in some cases can be a nightmare to get words right.
Jean
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The OPC stands for On-Line Parish Clerk
The idea is for each parish within a county to have an individual or group adopt a parish and then add material to that page such as bmd's, census, newspaper items - in fact anything that is of interest to that particular parish. The Wiltshire project has a motto - What is of interest or not to yourself will be of interest to someone else. We extend into local history as well as family history. You have no need to live within the county many of our OPCs and transcribers live out of the UK. Most have an interest or link to the county others just feel that that they have gained something from such a project for free in the past and would like to try and give something back. We are all volunteers and some often purchase books, postcards, microfiche of parish registers from their own purses in order to produce transcripts for others to use for free. We try to provide a starting point for further research and as with all research we recommend that the original source material is consulted. There is no set amount of time that volunteers need to spend on the project as we believe that every little helps and we realise that most of us have other lives to live too and we are not a professional organisation. We are totally unfunded although some sites do accept donations. Wiltshire OPC accept donations of material only. If parish adoption is something that a volunteer feels they cannot commit to then transcribing items or preparing items for publication is a big help. The Wiltshire project has over 500 items awaiting preparation at the present time. Therefore any help we get would be most gratefully received.
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Three cheers for the OPC co-ordinators and contributors!
So far I have not needed to use the Wilts OPC but Lancs and Sussex have been invaluable to me, so much so that I have contributed transcripts of post 1858 wills I have bought and some gravestone photos to the Sussex site in an effort to "put something back", as well as helping out with their project to transcribe the 1841 census.
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Is there a listing of the OPC projects nationwide?
Steve
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This post is somewhat confusing. The comment "We appreciate criticism good or bad but would wish that to be directed at us via our website rather than on public forums such as this." would seem to suggest that the criticism was posted on this forum. I have had a look for said criticism but could find nothing. Perhaps someone could enlighten me.
As for "as useful as oil on water" the act of pouring oil on water was/is a known calming act for troubled seas.
Regards
Malky
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The criticiscm was made on other topics, and also on here, but the criticism here has been removed, as Trancegirl has specifically requested that it be made directly on the OPC site.
Bob
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Is there a listing of the OPC projects nationwide?
Steve
I'm also wondering if there is a overall site for OPC projects?
sami
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This is a list of the schemes that we know of - there may be more that haven't been added
http://www.wiltshire-opc.org.uk/genealogy/index.php/research/national-opc-schemes
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Is there a listing of the OPC projects nationwide?
Steve
I'm also wondering if there is a overall site for OPC projects?
sami
Here's a link that may be of assistance.
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/online_parish_clerk
Back in the 1930s one of my ancestors was one of the volunteers who helped transcribe the longhand of earlier NSW BDM scribes. They were transcribing from well worn pages, under natural light, and were reading the script they were familiar with, as many of those volunteers were reading their older family members handwritten words. Yet, there are many instances where it seems there are flaws in their efforts. Those volunteers were aware they were not perfect, yet they strived towards excellence, to benefit not just their own generation, long before family history was the popular armchair hobby of today, but to benefit all generations that come after them.
Several of my generation within my own family have been transcribing NSW records for decades. We do it because we are aware that the NSW Education System changed the style of handwriting being taught to school children back in the 1960s. So my generation is the last of the generations who are familiar with, and regularly use the longhand script found in the NSW official records. Typewriters found their way into the NSW public service post WWI.
So while I am not one who has transcribed for any of the English OPC volunteer organisations, I am one who has transcribed Church Registers, Shipping Lists, Correspondence to and from Govt officers, AIF Base Records, among many other handwritten NSW Records.
Yes, it is likely I have mis-interpreted some of the handwriting. Yes, it is likely I have hit the wrong keys on my typewriter, or for the past 20 years, my puter keyboard. Yes, it is likely I have made mistakes that neither I nor anyone else checking my work has picked up.
However, it is also likely that much of my work has been helpful to anyone who has not had direct access to the primary records that I have transcribed. That surely is the main reason for any transcriber sharing their transcribed efforts with others. All transcribed work needs to be validated by reference back to the primary record, and so rather than anyone (RChatter or otherwise) making adverse comments across a number of forums, it is best that the lead organisation is contacted in a positive way, so they can investigate and make any adjustments. Perhaps they may find that a transcriber needs a break, or a new pair of specs, or a new backlight in their reader. Perhaps they may find that the enquirer is being a tad too pedantic, or perhaps there's any number of other reasons that become apparent.
Sorry for my long post.
Cheers, JM.
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Thank you for all your support - we do try to achieve perfection under very difficult and challenging circumstances
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Thank you for the link majm.
Very useful.
Steve
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The criticiscm was made on other topics, and also on here, but the criticism here has been removed, as Trancegirl has specifically requested that it be made directly on the OPC site.
Bob
Bob, this is rather disturbing. If Rootschat members post a criticism of another genealogy site, and assuming the criticisms are well written, not offensive, defamatory etc, surely they shouldn't be censored, just because it might hurt someone's feelings or because the people involved are volunteers. People make criticisms of National Statistics, Ancestry etc, I have just posted a criticism of FamilySearch, does this mean if the Mormons object all criticism of their free service will be removed?
As far as OPC is concerned, it is of patchy quality. As much of my family is in Kent, I use Kent OPC regularly and where a parish has a lot of information it is very useful, where there is none, the 'holding page' is pretty useless. The aim of OPC seems to be much the same as FreeREG, part of the same stable as FreeBMD, but in both cases the geographical coverage is patchy, for the obvious reasons that volunteers needed to do the transcribing are in short supply. Other OPC contents duplicates GENUKI sites, and in that case it is the latter that are fairly useless. Most of the parish information on GENUKI seems to have been written a decade or so ago and barely updated since. The county pages on Rootschat give another set of listings of sources for genealogy data.
The fact that none of these sites truly gives a comprehensive and up to date picture of what resources are available is unfortunate. In an ideal world all these non-commercial projects would coordinate their efforts and present a common face to the user community, making every effort to avoid duplication and pooling volunteer effort to the best effect.
John
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Criticism is welcomed providing it is not sarcastic and derogative to what we do and that the criticism is based on facts and not comparisons to other transcriptions which contain mistakes as well. As I have said before you don't buy a product in Tesco and take it to Asda to complain about it. All we ask is that if there is a problem the person has the decency to point out any errors to us first before posting bad press elsewhere.
We at Wiltshire OPC try to add a variety of information and not just the BMDs and Census for both Family and local historians.
Some OPC projects are lucky in that they accept donations to purchase records to transcribe - most schemes don't do this and its the volunteers that purchase microfiche, hire microfilm, take out subscriptions to pay per view sites (not to copy but for cross referencing).
I agree that the information can vary from OPC to OPC but as volunteers we all have other lives to lead too and not all can transcribe as much as we would like.
If OPC projects had more volunteers come forward we could make it a much better resource nationwide. I am sure other schemes would agree that if their users were to volunteer to transcribe just one item each then the information would build up to a great asset. Wiltshire Project alone has 2500 returning users yet we have about 60 OPCs and about 10 transcribers.
You say you have posted a criticism about Family Search have you also addressed the problem with that organisation because if you haven't how will they improve their service too.