Containing a wide range of census indexes, transcripts and images, parish records, directories and more, we check out this rapidly growing online service |
limited to looking up an entry on S&N Genealogy Supplies’ CDs, as full references are given to enable them to be used with any census images on film or CD. And, by the end of December 2005, indexes/transcripts for all census years should be available on the site for London, Lancashire and Yorkshire- covering a very large proportion of the population.
NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS
Previously you could only subscribe to individual databases, which could prove expensive, but there are now good value, all-inclusive subscription plans to suit individual researchers, providing access to a whole collection of data.
The Personal Plus subscription provides viewing credits and costs from £4.66 per month. The minimum subscription period is |
a 12 month subscription but payments may be made monthly or quarterly if you wish to spread the costs. The best value is the Personal Premium subscription, which costs £68.95 per year (£5.75 a month) for unlimited, credit free access.
ADDED EXTRAS
Although not all the census indexes and transcripts are linked to images of the original pages yet, it is these indexes combined with access to S&N Genealogy Supplies’ (the company behind TheGenealogist.co.uk) BMD index data that is particularly attractive to subscribers.
The civil registration indexes on BMDindex.co.uk (covered in issue 21) include the full GRO indexes to births, marriages and deaths from 1837-1983 as page images, |
Over the last year or so The Genealogist.co.uk has metamorphosed into a large online data service that deserves to be better known. Much of TheGenealogist.co.uk’s material is census related, with census indexes, both completed and partial, census transcripts and online images available.
There is great demand for indexes for use with census image CDs or film, and the team at TheGenealogist.co.uk’s aim is to create the most accurate online indexes and transcripts possible. Although the priority appears to be making the transcripts available, which is great for people without access to broadband facilities as the |
information is much quicker to download than images, more image sets are steadily appearing online.
The range of census data online includes material from 1841-1901, and from a veritable A-Z of counties covering England and Wales. For example, with a subscription, you get access to the name indexes for Berkshire from 1841, 1851 and 1871, the complete transcript of the 1841 and 1851 censuses for Glamorgan and a series of name indexes and census transcripts for London from 1841 to 1901. New data sets are being added each week, so subscribers are regularly finding new material to search.
Using the census indexes is not |
indexed by the name, and fully machine searchable entries from 1984 onwards. As you can quite quickly spend a large amount of money searching BMD indexes alone, their inclusion is a big draw.
Because our parish records aren’t centralised, but scattered around the country in various record offices, libraries, private collections or even the original churches and chapels, it will be a long time before we see large amounts of them online.
TheGenealogist.co.uk has digitised some material covering six counties, mainly from the Phillimore transcripts of marriages. Other data sets to look out for include The Returns of Owners of Land 1873, which is available for all of England and Wales. This is a valuable listing of all those who owned more than an acre at that time.
At the time of writing, searchable trade directories have only been added for London, but as there are many of these in S&N Genealogy Supplies’ CD catalogue you can
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expect to see more appear in the near future.
Their back catalogue of CDs will provide much useful information as it is added to the online service. You will be able to search data that you perhaps wouldn’t have purchased on CD because you were uncertain of finding any positive results for your outlay, the recently added Knights of England 1127-1904 is such a volume, and many more set to follow.
SEARCHING INDEXES
TheGenealogist.co.uk’s census name indexes are divided into counties and can be searched by Forename, Surname and Age (+5 years). You can also narrow your search down to a specific district and Piece number within the county. Wild cards can be used in a search term after the first three letters, so DAVI* will find Davis, Davidson, Davison etc.
There are options to include Nicknames in the Forename search, which would for instance include Dick when searching for
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Richard, and you can opt to search for surname variants too.
Unlike some rival census indexes and transcripts, TheGenealogist.co.uk’s transcripts actually include all the main fields, plus occupation, but although they appear in the results, they are not all searchable at present. The only additional searchable field to those available in the name indexes being the Occupation. One search limitation is the necessity to include two fields in a search, from surname, forename and age. ACCURATE INDEXES
We expect indexes to be accurate, but in reality this isn’t always the case and poor indexing can make some entries almost impossible to find. TheGenealogist.co.uk aims to provide the most accurate online transcripts available and believes that it uses more rigorous checking than any other online service. The company takes a very proactive approach to correcting the indexes, rather than waiting for
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users to report errors, although the system allows for this too.
The bulk of the transcription is done abroad, where high quality work is being achieved. These initial transcripts are then sampled and if the error rate is unacceptably high, they are rejected and have to be reworked by the contractors.
If the data is accepted, this is only the beginning, as it is then subjected to a series of very sophisticated data auditing programs to highlight possible anomalies and flag them for manual checking. Initially the checks relate to the fields used in the name indexes, so that these can be made available as quickly as possible, then the other fields are examined to produce the complete transcripts. Once any possible errors are flagged, they are checked using the unique combination of a dedicated team of indexers and transcribers at their UK headquarters, and a 4,000 plus worldwide band of volunteers. |
UKINDEXER.CO.UK
TheGenealogist.co.uk was initially a website for volunteers who transcribed census images from S&N Genealogy Supplies' census CDs to create indexes. Volunteers received free copies of the index, which was then made available on CD for other owners of the sets to purchase. These volunteers, who all enjoy the challenge of puzzling over handwritten census entries, have now signed up at www.ukindexer.co.uk.
When they have a little time to spare they can download a batch of 10 |
entries to check, each one being a mix of uncorrected and previously corrected, double-check items. Various help files and dictionaries are available online to assist in the work. All the entries flagged as possible errors are checked by at least two people.
As a reward, volunteers earn points which can be redeemed for S&N Genealogy Supplies vouchers. While correcting flagged errors, the volunteers can also report errors on adjacent entries, which are then passed to someone else for checking. This approach ensures that problem |
areas are inspected by a team of transcribers. Anyone can volunteer, but access to a broadband internet connection if preferable.
THE FUTURE
TheGenealogist.co.uk's service is growing by the week, making the new all-inclusive subscriptions look ever more attractive, particularly with our special reader offer. Don't forget to read through our step-by-step guide to searching the online records, to get the most |
from your subscription. The real strengths of TheGenealogist.co.uk's service presently lie in its BMD indexes, the extensive coverage of census material, highly accurate indexes and 1841 Census material currently unavailable elsewhere.
But what can we expect from the future? Will the site keep growing? Nothing is entirely predictable, but as the largest UK publisher of British data CDs, S&N Genealogy Supplies certainly have access to plenty more material to add to their youthful online service.
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