Genealogy Chat

Hi everyone, Just noticed that some of you have received your discs already - FANTASTIC! So this is the thread I promised to put up for if you have any queries (Kim and Steve - I'll email you). So if you have a question, ask away. I can't guarantee that us other transcribers will have the answer but we will try our best! Jeanette x

Got any more of that coffee Corrina! lol Go to the FreeCen site. Down the left hand side you will see Transcriptions then just below it says software to do it - click on that. In the first section entitled The Software you will see something called Genie. Download that as it can be very useful with place names and counties. In the third section entitled Phase 1: Transcribing you will see Download SSCENS specifications - click on that. Scroll down and you will see SSCENS Download - click on Download now. Hopefully when you have done that you will end up with icons on your desktop called SSCENS, Fields, Structur, Readme, Censdemo and blank. these contain info that will help with transcribing. It's a good idea to print them off to have handy at your fingertips to refer to. I haven't done this for a while so I hope I've described it properly! lol Jeanette x

I am still waiting for someone to get in touch with me. Does everyone want to do Devon. lol Regards Jill

Hi Jeanette I've had a couple of chats with Brenda and Irene and have agreed to make a start on 1861 using my own discs. Some areas have already either been started or allocated so I said I'd have a crack at Manchester. Like Corrina I was a bit confused what I was actually supposed to be downloading but think I understand better from your explanation above so will have a look later! Lou

Jill - I've emailed you Lou - Good to have you on board. Let me know if it works! lol

Hi. I received my disc a couple of days ago. I,ve downloaded all the bits and pieces successfully. I hope you won,t think me an idiot but do I use Capitals or not when I get to put the details onto the spread sheet. Di.

Hi Dinah, That was quick! No, do everything in lower case. The program that they use to upload it to the site puts all the capitals in for them. It also makes it quicker for us to enter the info. Corrina It's a good idea to back up your work from time to time either onto a floppy or cd. It would be awful if you had got nearly to the end of the piece, then lost it all because of a computer glitch! Jeanette x

Hi I'm waiting to hear from Staffordshire, am I surplus to requirements, if so I'll do Leicester.Am looking forward to having a go. Geraldine

I've emailed you Geraldine :-)

nudge

Well done all you newbies and welcome to the transcribers club!!!

Right, I've finally made a start on Dewsbury! Do I continue to fill in every column for every row. i.e. on the 2nd row do I put in the civil parish, etc or do I put a ditto, or leave it blank until it changes. I'm sure this is answered in all the info on the freecen website, but I feel seem to have been reading and re-reading for hours. Help! Steve

Nice one Steve! Just put the parish name in column A at the beginning of each new parish. Then the next columns - B, C, D, E, F and G only need to be filled in for the fist person of each household. Of course not every household will have a house number so just leave that blank if they haven't. Hope that makes sense! Jeanette x

Thanks Jeannette, off I go!

Hi everyone, l received my 1861 CD yesterday and have spent most of my time trying to work out one the families surname and anothers birth place. Hubby comes along and just casually says 'look on the 1871 census to see if they are still living there'. So l looked on the 1871 and my problem was solved. So hope this is a little tip for some of you who might be stuck. Kim

Here we go with first two stupid? questions Having printed out spreadsheet structure and fields so I can refer directly I now discover have only got half on each page should i have printed them landscape not portrait second question my excel spreadsheet has numbers for columns and rows and info states letters for colomns what am I doing wrong Maybe this was a mistake to volunteer - do hope not - good at perservering not oo hot on patience. Ann

Hi all, sorry Ann don't know the answer to your question as I have not started yet!! signed up for Kent but I have to wait 3-4 weeks for the CD as it is coming from Australia!

Hi ladies, sorry I haven't been around tonight but my daughter wanted to use the computer. Kim, that's a top tip! Never thought of that one. Of course you won't always be lucky enough to find them in the same place 10 years later. So if you do have trouble trying to work out what something says, don't spend too much time on it - say 30 secs to 1 min. If you can't work it out put the default hyphen in that column and then an x in the next appropriate space. When they run it through the checking process, the program will pick up on the x and the validator can then spend more time on working it out. Also don't forget to use Genie which you should have downloaded. It is invaluable when it comes to working out place names and counties. Ann Unfortuantely one thing I am not is a computer techie! lol. I'm afraid I don't have much of a clue in that department. Are you defintiely opening a spreadsheet and not a database? It could be that yor spreadsheet program is different to mine though. I think this is probably a question for your co-ordinator. Sorry I couldn't help. Jeanette x UPDATE FOR ANN - HAVE A LOOK AT VERONICA'S REPLY ON NEXT PAGE

Brilliant Veronica! Thanks for that

Hi Can anyone answer a quick question please. I'm just filling in the spread sheet and l am not sure where l get the ED number and the Folio number from. Thanks, Kim