Transcribers' Page

Welcome to the FreeBMD Volunteers' and Transcribers' page.

The website is constantly under development. We appreciate your feedback.

See what people are saying about us on our Bouquets Page.

FreeBMD is kindly hosted by The Bunker and sponsored by RootsWeb.

Unable to find the information you require? Try using our website search engine by clicking here:

Please note: Due to a lot of confusion over the transcribing of full stops (periods), all volunteers are asked to read this Policy Statement on the matter. For the definitive guide on transcribing full stops, please see here.

Reporting Problems

If you experience errors while using this web site, or while submitting entries to the database, please report them to us at , saying what you were doing (i.e. submitting, searching), the URL and the exact time (and timezone) that this happened (including the text of any error messages). Thank you.

Please note that this address must not be used to report errors in the data held by FreeBMD. If you have a correction to an entry click click on the Info button button next to the entry and follow the instructions for submitting a correction.

File Management

Statistics

Coverage Charts showing percentage FreeBMD coverage by quarter and event (last updated Friday, 16-Jul-2010 02:33:35 BST).
Index of Graphs showing the progress of the project. Possibly the most interesting is the total number of entries.
Entry totals giving the number of entries for each quarter.
Districts Information about Registration Districts, including volume and page mappings.
Transcriber information giving number of records contributed.

Volunteer Support & Resources

Hints & Help for Beginners.
Transcribers' Knowledge Base If you are having problems, or need to ask aquestion about the transcriptions you are doing, check here. Somebody may already have answered your question.
How to read 19th Century Handwriting - a guide for transcribers.
FreeBMD News (last updated 19 September 2008).
Transcription Software Including SpeedBMD and WinBMD.
Syndicates and what that means.
Allocations Pages showing which syndicate is doing which page.
Where are the Indexes?. This is an incomplete list. Please help us to improve it.
Scans available for transcription. This is where you go to access scans if you are transcribing using this method.

Communications

Mailing Lists. If you would like to become involved in the project, please join one of our mailing lists.
Search the List Archives - Admins, Discuss, News

all the lists

The #FreeBMD IRC Channel.

Advanced Information

Submission Format. A definition of the formats for submitting entries.
Character set. Information on character sets used by FreeBMD.

Co-ordinator Resources

Hints for Co-ordinators
Syndicate maintenance Add new users to your syndicate.
Upload Report. Check files uploaded by volunteers in your Syndicate.
Syndicate Information. Gives information about syndicates, including syndicate statistics.
Show File. Gives read access to files uploaded by volunteers in your Syndicate (to download files see below).
Show File Differences. Reports the differences between two files, or between previous versions of a file.
Show File with download. Allows download of files uploaded by volunteers in your Syndicate.
Upload Errors. This listing gives the files that were rejected during the last update.
FreeBMD Ranges. This gives the events and periods allocated to each Syndicate.
Processes An overview of the steps that the project goes through to ensure data accuracy.
Access to Syndicate Members' Files Process for accessing Syndicate Members (i.e. Transcribers/Volunteers) Files.
Deletion of Submitter IDs Process for deleting submitter IDs of volunteers who have not uploaded files for some time.
Duplicate Files Check for the same file uploaded by more than one Syndicate Member.
Duplicate Syndicate Pages Check for pages transcribed by more than one member of a Syndicate.
Suspect Files A list of files uploaded by Syndicate Members that have some anomoly that needs to be checked (e.g. files with an unexpectedly small number of entries because only one column of a multi-column page has been transcribed). This now includes aliases in the Associate Name (previously in a separate list)
Self Confirmed Files Check for entries uploaded by Syndicate Members more than once
Predict year/event/quarter for a file from the volume/page combinations in the file
UCF files A list of files that have a high usage of UCF characters

Data Teams

In addition to Transcribers and Co-ordinators, FreeBMD uses the services of a small number of people in a number of teams who help to ensure that the accuracy of our data is improved. Some of these roles remain to be filled (an announcement will be made when we are looking for people)

District Alias Team - Co-ordinator Mary Trevan
Query Investigation Team - Coordinator Kevin S. Howell
Data Checking Teams - Coordinator TBA
Resolution Teams - Coordinator TBA
Central Resolution Team - Coordinator TBA

Developer Resources

The FreeBMD Website is maintained by a small team of developers. Additional volunteers are welcome! The pages in this section describe the development environment that we use, the processes involved, and include some files which are a useful reference for developers.

The software used to run FreeBMD.
Design Guide showing the standard format of FreeBMD Web pages.
HTML Preprocessor giving information about the use of the HTML preprocessor used for all FreeBMD static web pages.
Schedule of updates and handoffs (for FreeUKGEN).

The tools we use in the development process are CVS, a version control system, and PTS, a problem tracking system. Below is a list of helpfiles and tutorials for the various tools and methods of development used on FreeBMD

Development Process showing the process for controlling changes to FreeBMD.
CVS How it works
CVS Independent Mode A tutorial
CVS Cooperative Mode A tutorial
trac Managing changes

FreeBMD Main Page

Search engine, layout and database Copyright © 1998-2009 The Trustees of FreeBMD (Ben Laurie, Graham Hart, Camilla von Massenbach and David Mayall), a charity registered in England and Wales, Number 1096940.
We make no warranty whatsoever as to the accuracy or completeness of the FreeBMD data.
Use of the FreeBMD website is conditional upon acceptance of the Terms and Conditions