10 May 2001

Public Record Office (PRO)

Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA)

1. Communications and Introductions

1.1 Apologies for absence were received from David Dymond and Paul Blake.

1.2 Aisha Ghafoor informed the Panel that she had changed her name from Rhubi Ghafoor.

1.3 Jill Brassington and Marc Smith were introduced to the Panel as Deputy Communications Manager and Assistant Project Manager respectively.

1.4 Stephen Taylor informed the Panel that from 1st July AGRA would change its name to 'The Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives.' Its initials would remain the same.

2. Minutes of last meeting (20 February 2001): accuracy

2.1 The minutes were agreed for accuracy

3. Matters arising

3.1 Item 3.3 Future of 1891 data. James Budd reported that feedback was being collated on this issue but that no decision had been made. The pilot data would have to be removed temporarily from the present website to make way for the 1901 Census. Else Churchill advised that there would be great concern from the genealogical community if the data disappeared forever. EHS pointed out that the Genealogical Society of Utah had taken down its pilot website (Familysearch) and later reinstated it as the final version.

3.2 Item 4.4 1891 Promotional material. Margaret Brennand advised that due to a Parcelforce delay the 1891 publicity leaflets had not arrived in time for the SoG/FFHS fair at Leicester. Richard Ratcliffe confirmed that the FFHS had received copies of the publicity leaflets and a copy would be included in the next edition of the FFHS Newsflash.

3.3 Item 6.1 Search options for local and social historians. It was agreed that a sub-group of the Advisory Panel should be set up to discuss the issues involved and set out their ideas for alternative searching strategies for the 1901 Census. David Dymond, Dominic Johnson and Kevin Schurer agreed to be members of this sub-group.
Action: JBr to arrange a meeting

3.4 Item 6.6 Length of credit card sessions. James Budd thought it was possible that credit card sessions could be extended from 24 hours to 48 hours. Else Churchill advised that it was preferable to extend the session limits in order to avoid charging problems arising from website inaccessibility.

3.5 Item 6.7 Availability of vouchers overseas. Vouchers will be available overseas although the details were still to be worked out. Stephen Taylor asked what time limits were likely to be applied to vouchers. This was still a matter for debate but it was likely to be in the order of two weeks for £5.00 and £10.00 vouchers, and three months for £50.00 vouchers.

4. Overseas Transcription

4.1 Else Churchill reported that she had heard a rumour that the Welsh returns were being transcribed overseas. Alison Webster confirmed that this was the case. Enterprise Supply Services (ESS) had been given the contract by DERA to transcribe the 1901 Census. Given the volume of data that was required to be transcribed, ESS had contracted with an external bureau to undertake some of the work. Alison Webster confirmed that the work abroad was subject to the same stringent Quality Assurance process as the work conducted in the UK and the accuracy rates were extremely high. Specialists in the Welsh language from the UK had also been sent abroad to help.

5. The 1891 Census Pilot

5.1 Alison Webster advised that the Pilot had gone live on the Internet on 20th April and was officially launched on 1st May. Preliminary statistics indicated about 50% of users were from the UK. Almost as many users were accessing the transcriptions as the original images. The majority of comments had been positive but there were concerns regarding the quality of some of the transcription.

5.2 In the first 10 days over 700 feedback comments had been received. These were all being carefully evaluated. Some changes would be made during the course of the Pilot. Other changes would have to wait until the main 1901 service. Some responses to FAQs would also be posted up on the website.

5.3 Margaret Brennand spoke about the publicity for the 1891 Pilot. She had helped with the official launch by taking part in a live broadcast on BBC Radio Norfolk and saw the 16 PCs set up at the Norwich Central Reference Library for users to browse the 1891 site. Staff from the PRO and DERA had attended the SoG Family History Fair in London on 5th and 6th May. The response there had been overwhelmingly supportive. The same team would be attending the Yorkshire Family History Fair in June and the FFHS Fair in Weston-super-Mare in July.

5.4 A team from the Public Record Office was attending the National Genealogical Society 2001 Conference in Portland, Oregon, USA. Margaret Brennand would be using the opportunity to promote the 1901 Census Project.

5.5 Some of the changes being considered for the Census website, introduced as a result of user feedback, include:

5.6 Alison Webster advised that transcription amendments were being logged and the data would be updated at least once during the life of the Pilot. All reported errors would be checked and changed if necessary. Richard Ratcliffe asked how transcription amendments would be notified on the 1901 Census site. Alison Webster advised that there would be a log listing all transcription changes.

6. Advisory Panel Comments on the 1891 Census Pilot

6.1 The Panel re-iterated its concerns about the quality of some of the transcription. Alison Webster replied that the 1901 transcription was of a considerably higher standard than the 1891 Pilot, and stressed that the PRO and DERA would be seeking to upgrade the 1891 data in the light of user comments.

6.2 The Panel were concerned at the small size of the image viewer which made navigating the page on the screen very difficult. James Budd advised that this issue was being looked at and an additional viewer may be packaged to allow a full screen display of the image. Despite this the Advisory Panel praised the quality of the image.

6.3 Maureen Bullows suggested that users should be advised that the image was of the whole page from the Enumerator's book and therefore would contain information on more than one individual.

6.4 Kevin Schurer expressed concern with the current Place name search because of a lack of standardisation of the geographical data. There were too many anomalies in the original data to make comprehensive searching feasible. For example, Norwich was sometimes given as the county name, instead of Norfolk. Developing a thesaurus and indexing data could solve this. Margaret Brennand and Alison Webster confirmed that the Placename search was being re-evaluated. Elizabeth Hallam Smith suggested that the sub-group set up to look at local and social history access could examine the issue.
Action: Advisory sub-group

6.5 Audrey Collins and Maureen Bullows both reported problems with data being incorrectly rolled down from previous entries on the Census. Alison Webster admitted that during transcription it was sometimes difficult to decide what should be rolled down since ditto marks were often absent. Rules had been developed to take account of anomalies.

6.6 The use of Soundex was explained but the Panel were not convinced as to its usefulness. Kevin Schurer advised that four different systems for searching variant spellings of names had been tested against the 1881 Census data and Soundex was the least satisfactory. It was agreed that Soundex tended to return too many entries and therefore it was better to leave the default search as an exact match only and let users choose the Soundex option on the Advanced Person Search screen.
Action: DERA

6.7 Else Churchill felt that more help should be given on how to complete a wildcard search. The initial letter of a name was the most likely one to be transcribed incorrectly but the search was only structured to accept a wildcard as the third or later character. Alison Webster agreed to raise this with DERA but thought that it would probably result in a significant slowing down of the search engine as all 32 million entries would have to be checked.
Action: AW to talk to DERA

6.8 Else Churchill asked for an explanation of what double keying meant in the context of the 1901 Project. Alison Webster confirmed that the material was keyed twice, the second keyer not having sight of the first keyer's input, the two copies were compared against each other and anomalies thrown up for checking. There was also a final edit check against the original image.

6.9 Alison Webster and Elizabeth Hallam Smith confirmed that there was a procedure for claiming a refund if a user had downloaded an incorrect image due to a transcription error.

6.10 Maureen Bullows referred to the National Burial Index and reported that the surname synonym variants were excellent. She felt that surname variants were more important than those for forenames. Margaret Brennand confirmed that a copy of the NBI was held by the PRO for Alison Webster to view.

6.11 Stephen Taylor was disappointed that users could not go directly from a listing of people on board a vessel or resident in an institution to the relevant original image. Alison Webster advised that it was hoped this would be changed for the 1901 Census but it would not be possible for the Pilot.

6.12 In response to requests to put further explanatory information on the site regarding limitations to Pilot functionality etc Margaret Brennand confirmed that a section would be hosted on the site shortly giving responses to FAQs. It was important to maintain a dialogue with users.

6.13 In response to issues regarding the site and browser functionality e.g. printing from frames, James Budd suggested that additional information could be added to the Help pages.

6.14 Else Churchill asked whether the site had been designed for Apple Mac functionality. Alison Webster replied that whilst the site had not been designed with Macs in mind it was possible to access the data using a Mac.

6.15 Stephen Taylor enquired about being able to search on Occupation. Alison Webster said that this had not been planned as a function of the current 1901 Census system. Elizabeth Hallam Smith advised that it would be looked at as a later enhancement. It would only be worthwhile if the Occupation entries were standardised.

6.16 Elizabeth Hallam Smith thanked everyone for their contributions, which were an invaluable aid towards improving the final product.

7. Any Other Business

7.1 Richard Ratcliffe advised that a letter had been received from the Devon Family History Society regarding the purchase of fiche by individuals and societies. Following the advice of Margaret Brennand he had responded saying that at present fiche would only be made available for sale to relevant libraries and record offices but the situation would be reviewed in the first few months after the live launch of the 1901 Census.

7.2 Elizabeth Hallam Smith asked the Panel whether they would be prepared to extend their remit to look at other digitisation projects at the PRO. Initially this would be a project to make wills from 1850-1858 available on the Internet. The Advisory Panel were happy to accept this new role.

8. Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting would be arranged to take place in mid-late July.