Availability of OPR's on SP .....

[sheilajim]

Hi Everyone

I hope that you all had a Merry Christmas.

I have noticed on SP that they haven't backed off from their statement that OPR's for marriage & Births will have images beginning in 2005. As there aren't many days left in 2005, does that mean that they will be available this week? k

Happy New Year

Sheila

Researching: McDonald-McLaren-Boyd-Kennedy-McKee-Morin/Moran-Kay/Key-Langhan/Langan-McKinnon-Watson in Scotland & Ireland

[DavidWW]

Hi Everyone

I hope that you all had a Merry Christmas.

I have noticed on SP that they haven't backed off from their statement that OPR's for marriage & Births will have images beginning in 2005. As there aren't many days left in 2005, does that mean that they will be available this week? k

Happy New Year

Sheila

Researching: McDonald-McLaren-Boyd-Kennedy-McKee-Morin/Moran-Kay/Key-Langhan/Langan-McKinnon-Watson in Scotland & Ireland

Ah hae ma doots..............

A User Group meeting is near certain to take place in January, so watch out for the minutes.

David

[sheilajim]

Hi David

I still live in hope

Sheila

[sporran]

Hello Sheila,


I shall reinforce David's comments. The order of events should be:
Corrected indexes, pointers, etc. (imminent)
1905 births, 1930 marriages, 1955 deaths (imminent)
1851 census (as timetable)
1841 census (as timetable).

Nothing else has been mentioned for the User Group to test, so we are unlikely to see OPR images before March under current plans.


Regards,

John

[Rab]

The OPR images would be a nice addition. It would also be good to know how up to date the OPR indexes are and how much is yet to be indexed, if any. For example I have a family where the births found in the birth indexes are very patchy. Whether that is down to the family registering or not I can't be certain but I have my doubts that the family would register their marriage in 1822, register a birth in 1824, not register a birth in 1826, register a birth in 1828, etc.

Mistakes in the indexes could account for it to right enough. I have one birth where the father was wrongly named in the index but the entry was correct. I also have a marriage where the surname of the female was wrong and only the luck of finding one of their children's birth certificates found me to the mistake in the indexes.

Rant over.

[DavidWW]

The OPR images would be a nice addition. It would also be good to know how up to date the OPR indexes are and how much is yet to be indexed, if any. For example I have a family where the births found in the birth indexes are very patchy. Whether that is down to the family registering or not I can't be certain but I have my doubts that the family would register their marriage in 1822, register a birth in 1824, not register a birth in 1826, register a birth in 1828, etc.

Mistakes in the indexes could account for it to right enough. I have one birth where the father was wrongly named in the index but the entry was correct. I also have a marriage where the surname of the female was wrong and only the luck of finding one of their children's birth certificates found me to the mistake in the indexes.

Rant over.

Rab

As far as I'm aware the digitisation is complete.

What happened was that when GROS and their subcontractor started to look into the real detail of linking these images to the existing indexes they found a large number of errors, not I hasten to add, errors in the indexes themselves but big problems with linking am index entry to a particular page.

When these OPR indexes were created many years ago it was on the basis of the outcome from the project being indexes only, without any groundwork being done to prepare for a future situation where there would be such a link.

As I understand it, and confirmed in various User Group minutes, GROS spent considerable efforts trying to find a workaround, but eventually concluded that the best course was to re-index the OPRs.

Progress on that latter?, - all I can do is to repeat that there will be a User Group meeting during January, when we'll find out more................

David

[Rab]

Thanks for the heads up David. It's good to know that the scanning proces has been completed. Re-indexing though sounds like a major time consuming task, I'm sure that decision was not taken lightly. I wouldn't foresee the images being on the site anytime soon then and most likely a long way off.

[AndrewP]

In ScotlandsPeople's broadcast e-mail today, announcing the "early arrival" of the 1905 births, 1930 marriages and 1955 deaths, they have mentioned the OPR images as due online during 2006.

Look out for announcements regarding the addition of other new data sets and enhancements to the site, including the OPR images, as the New Year progresses.

All the best,

Andrew Paterson

[Rab]

Cheers for the info Andrew. I didn't recieve an email from SP, maybe it's on it's way.

[StewL]

Didnt receive an email either, oh well in transit.

David

I suppose when they started the indexing process a few years ago, they had no idea about the the way personal computers would invade our world, and turn it into a postage stamp
In the last few years it as amazing the increase in speed of computers and internet connections compared to only 5 years ago.
Compare the size of home and office PC's now.
I recall when working in communications in the early 70 the headquarters where I worked had the biggest and fastest mainframe computer in the souther hemisphere, much smaller than Washington, Whitehall and Moscow mind you, but it filled a huge room in a sub-basement. I realise mainframes are different to what we use. Back then I would have looked at someone like they needed help , if they told me I would have instant communications anywhere in the world from my lounge room.

So back to what I was trying to say, was that they probably had no idea of the difference home computers would make to the world today, and the type of access it gives people globally.