I have started to disassemble over 200 ring-binder files.
Approximately 50,000 factual entries have been uploaded as if they were parts of a giant jigsaw puzzle with plenty of contextual clues without necessarily doing all the work. I believe that family historians prefer to make their own discoveries and the information is now gathered for that purpose.
The material being destroyed consists of 1) additional evidence, which can still be seen by following the indexed information to its source, and 2) speculative pedigrees which gather details from a variety of sources. They can be reproduced by putting all the available information together including certificates, census extracts, other people’s contributions and JGLS notes.
Nothing less than a very large, factual, well organised and easily accessible database is going to be fit for purpose and, after division into six regions, the database has been deposited at 30 record offices. Since some of the depositories are still to officially acknowledge receipt and because we are still sorting out the conditions of use I will delay giving a final list.
There is also a list of Record Offices that will not be participating and a large number of Record Offices that know nothing about the database and can still be approached and educated about it.
TL