1851 Oxfordshire Census

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Wendy Archer on July 15, 2009 at 5:53am

Alan -

Yes, your request to the OFHS HelpDesk was about to be answered by me! But I'm happy to explain here!

We, OFHS, purchased the films for the 1851 census and have had them scanned, and the images trimmed to remove the black borders.

Our transcript of 1851 has been entirely rechecked. The transcripts and the scans have been assembled onto a set of 3 CDs, along with street indexes, name indexes, a help file, and so on. The stage we've reached is that all that is done. On the beta copies there were some points arising in the help file that needed improving, and this has now been done. All that remains is for a further set of beta CDs to be written & approved, and we'll be there.

All this relies on volunteers and the time they have available.

We'd have liked it out sooner, but really do hope in the "next few months".

Wendy
Chairman, Oxfordshire FHS

Permalink Reply by Alan ENGLAND on July 15, 2009 at 6:49am

Wendy

Great news! Permit me to say that I am very conscious that such projects rely upon volunteers, and I would emphasise that there was no criticism, implied or otherwise, in my enquiry. I go further and suggest that it is an indirect compliment to the other high quality projects completed by Oxfordshire FHS that I raise this subject.

Even so, I'd be interested to discover if any other members share my view about the 'absent' 1851 transcripts and whether they are willing to say so here?

In the meantime, do I need to say: put my name down for a set please!

Alan England.

Permalink Reply by Wendy Archer on July 16, 2009 at 12:06am

Alan -

We'll shout when it's ready - but it is useful to have some idea of demand.

Wendy

Permalink Reply by Gordon Keith Hazell on July 15, 2009 at 10:58am

I will be very pleased to see the new CDs as the OFHS 1851 census transcript does have omissions. I bought my fiche set some twenty years ago and always took it as gospel, despite some of the persons appearing in the indexes not appearing in the transcript. However, after looking for a missing relative, who was not in the indexes, for about the same period of time, I found her on a CD of the original enumerators records from another source and was then able to trace her death a few months later. It was extremely annoying to think that if the transcript had been correct, I would have found her twenty years earlier. As the OFHS CDs of the censuses are always of such good quality, I am extremely impatient to get hold of the new CDs as soon as possible, as I expect, are most of us

Keith

Permalink Reply by Wendy Archer on July 16, 2009 at 12:09am

Keith -

On behalf of OFHS, I'm sorry you were misled by the fiche of years ago.

As I said, and that's what's taken time, a team ably led by Dave Beames has revisited the whole transcript.

If you want to test the new CDs, what is the name of your "missing" relative?

Wendy