Updated 29 Mar 2009
|
WIRKSWORTH Parish Records 1600-1900
|
|
----LETTER from NEW ZEALAND-----
I recently got an e-mail that made my day. My answer explains itself
At 21:14 05/01/99 +1300, you wrote:
>Hello John
>
>Have just paid your site a visit and picked up the death of Henry Brook,
>which I had not been able to discover through the PRO indexes.
>You have saved me a lot of time and money.
>Thank you so much for your excellent site.
>Regards
>Carolyn Cameron
>Auckland NZ
Hello Carolyn,
So glad your search was successful, and you liked my website.
As far as MIs are concerned, the really hard work of reading all the
gravestones was done by Derbyshire Ancestral Research Group, a group of
(may I say) older enthusiasts that I only know by phone. They spend hours
in cemetaries in the summer, and hours at keyboards in the winter.
Unfortunately, their generation is not really computer-literate, and they
used typewriters to record all their efforts. When I asked, they willingly
gave me permission to put their typings onto the Internet if I could, and
photocopied their report and posted it all to Devon. In a small farm on the
edge of Dartmoor lives Bob Belfield, whom I only know via e-mail. He offered
to scan and OCR the photocopies and e-mail the results back to me in Dorset.
Bob did his work very efficiently, and I was able to transfer the words to
computer database without too much trouble. Once indexed, the MIs were
uploaded to my existing website. Now I hear that someone in far-away
New Zealand has found some important information they may not have been able
to uncover in any other way. Imagine my pleasure at getting your message!
The whole proceedure is a tour-de-force of modern technology, that would
have been undreamed of even in the lifetime of Henry BROOK. Somehow your
message makes it all seem worthwhile.
Best wishes,
John Palmer, Dorset, England