| |
|
Devon | |
Contents & Search | ||
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) relating to DEVON |
||||||
The purpose of this "Devon FAQ file" is to give answers to the above queries, in many cases simply by reference to the appropriate section of GENUKI/Devon, i.e. of: http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/. (A copy of this FAQ file will be posted occasionally to the DEVON mailing list, and also held in GENUKI, reachable directly from the GENUKI/Devon page, as the file is also intended to be of assistance both to GENUKI/Devon users and subscribers to the DEVON mailing list.)
The set of answers provided in this page supplement the more general ones provided in the FAQ file for GENUKI as a whole, at http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/faq.html. For convenience here is an index, via which a browser-user can go directly to answers in the more general FAQ file. (The browser's "Back" button can be used to return to this Devon FAQ file.)
Don't forget that in GENUKI information is given at several levels - if you can't find information on a particular topic in the relevant parish page, make sure to check that same topic in the county page, since this might contain what you are searching for amongst information covering all the parishes. Indeed it might well be worth checking the England or the UK pages. You can move up through these levels using the "Up" arrow that you will find at the top of each page.
After such checking, and having exhausted the possibilities provided the GENUKI/Devon Search facility (at http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/DEVsearch.html) or the general GENUKI search engine (at http://www.genuki.org.uk/search/) then this is a fine question to send to the DEVON mailing list. However, please do not send such questions just to me. My own area of interest and expertise regarding Devon centres on Clovelly in North Devon - otherwise, just about all I know of Devon genealogy is already in the Devon pages, maintenance of which takes up a good proportion of my spare time.
members@devonfhs.org.uk
The Devon FHS provides - to their over 5000 members - a Members' Interests search facility.
Devon-related research interests are included in Graham Jaunay's On-line Names Research Directory. This is at
http://www.onlinenames.net.au/
Note that although the census in the UK is taken every 10 years, the first being in 1801, national census records containing information of interest to family historians are available only for 1841 to 1901. The (unindexed) original records can be seen on either microfilm or microfiche at the National Archives in London, and at LDS Family History Centres world-wide. Adding to GENUKI's extensive general information about the census, at http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/Census.html, the situation for Devon in particular is as follows:
Pre-1841 census records exist for a small number of Devon parishes - details, and some transcriptions, are given in the respective parish pages.
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/civreg/index.html.)
Stoke Damerel is a large parish, adjoining Plymouth, which includes Devonport. Answering a more general question, the button at the top of the Devon page marked "Devon Towns & Parishes" will take you to a page that provides links to all the individual Devon parishes (and its most major towns), and that also lists the names of all the towns and sizeable villages that were not parishes, and place names that might be confused with parish names. This page also provides a search facility based on all the over 7000 place names in the 1945-48 one inch to the mile Ordnance Survey Maps, that provides each place's grid reference, linked to various maps, and identifies the containing parish.
There is also a much larger (12,000 item) Devon Gazetteer which lists all the chapels, churches, farms, hamlets, houses, inns, manors, schools, streets, villages, banks, societies, institutions, etc., named in White's History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Devonshire (1850), identifying the containing parish, but not however providing grid references. There are links to this Gazetteer from near the top of, and under Genealogy on, the GENUKI/Devon page. Its URL is:
http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/Gazetteer/.
The thousands of citations to books and articles given in GENUKI/Devon come from a variety of sources - where possible library catalogue numbers or ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) are included. Such information is intended to help you locate a copy of the item, for example in an online service such as Google Book Search, in a good reference library, via an Inter-Library Loan service operated by your library, or via one of the several on-line union catalogues of second-hand booksellers, such as:
http://www.abebooks.com/
http://www.amazon.com/ (now incorporating Bibliofind)
http://www.bookfinder.com/
http://www.usedbooksearch.co.uk/
Other possibilities are to seek help via the DEVON mailing list, and to check Google's Book Search site.
There are many possibilities. You could transcribe (having obtained any necessary permissions and copyright clearances), original records or published descriptive texts relating to parishes or topics of interest to you. You could prepare your own descriptive texts about places or topics on which you have gained expertise. (Such material could either be hosted within GENUKI/Devon, or within your own space and linked to from GENUKI/Devon.) You could act as, or assist, the On-line Parish Clerk for a parish - see
http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/OPCproject.html
There is a joint project to transcribe the 1861 Census (see DFHS/FreeCen project), together with a project to index published parish histories and the like (see http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/indexingproject.html), for each of which additional volunteers are always welcome. Finally, more general information about how you could contribute to GENUKI is to be found at:
http://www.genuki.org.uk/org/helpus.html.
http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/Genealogies/
Please refrain from postings which are not of relevance to Devon genealogy - such as messages concerned with genealogical software packages. In particular, do not post messages about computer viruses to the list. (Anyone ignoring this rule is liable to be automatically unsubscribed.) If you have a query or information about a possible computer virus, send it directly to the list owner, Vicki Lindsay Thauvin <vicki@thauvin.net> or to the list moderators Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk> and Terry Leaman <terryleaman@tiscali.co.uk> who will if appropriate communicate its contents to the list. The reason for this rule is simple - fear of viruses is such that any message on the mailing list about a virus is such that, even if the message is itself timely and factually correct (something which is far from always the case), it will lead to a whole host of follow up messages, often of dubious accuracy, which themselves constitute a sort of virus, and annoy many subscribers.
Similarly, please do not use the DEVON mailing list for messages (such as thank you messages) that are aimed at a specific individual, and which do not contain information which is likely to useful to (or perhaps even understood by!) anyone else. Such messages should be sent by direct email, so as to avoid clogging up many hundreds of mailboxes world-wide. And, please, use an informative subject line on any message to the DEVON mailing list - messages headed "Help", "New Subscriber", "My Brick Wall", etc., might well escape the attention of readers who might be able to help. Similarly, adherence to the common genealogical convention of giving surnames in CAPITAL letters is strongly recommended.
If you wish to complain or comment unfavourably about some other subscriber please do so directly to the subscriber and/or to the list owner or moderators - NOT to the entire list, which just exacerbates the problem. Vicki, as is evident from her occasional messages to the list, is quite capable of dealing politely but decisively with people who misuse the mailing list. Similarly, the list is not an appropriate place for critical comments about archives and other organisations, e.g. regarding their policies concerning access to information they possess which would be useful to genealogists.
It is acceptable for new subscribers to post a message simply listing their Devon research interests. However, repeated posting of such messages, e.g. in response to some sort of "Roll Call", is not acceptable, due to the impact they can have both on the level of traffic on the DEVON mailing list, and its "signal-to-noise" ratio, i.e. average level of interest to subscribers. (Repeated flouting of this rule will lead to the sender being unsubscribed.)
Incidentally, it is always a good idea to include with any query to the DEVON mailing list a brief indication of what searches of online and conventional sources you have already made. This is in order to avoid your receiving, and other respondents wasting effort providing, information that you are already familiar with.
If you are uncertain whether a message you are considering posting would be regarded as appropriate for the DEVON mailing list, please seek advice beforehand from the list moderators, Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk> and Terry Leaman <terryleaman@tiscali.co.uk>.
(If you have reason to question whether a message you have tried to send to the mailing list has been received and distributed successfully, please ask one of us to investigate - DO NOT clutter up everyone's mailbox by sending out "test" messages.)
Finally, note that since the DEVON mailing list is distributed by Rootsweb, it is governed by Rootsweb's "Acceptable Use Policy", which is to be found at:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/rootsweb/aup.html
In particular this states:
"You should submit only content which belongs to you and will not violate the property or other rights of other people or organizations. . . Content submitted for the purpose of commercial use, advertising or fee for service is prohibited. "
The rules are essentially the same for posting to a mailing list, or providing information on the web. Indeed, substantial transcriptions should be made available for inclusion in GENUKI/Devon, as well as - or indeed instead of - being posted, so as to ensure their continued easy accessibility. (Recall that GENUKI is an archived and searchable virtual library, the continued availability and existence of which does not depend on any single individual.)
Please do not post extensive transcriptions from documents or publications unless you can demonstrate that you have good reason to believe that you are not offending against either the wishes or the legal rights of the owner, or against copyright.
Note that if an individual, or an archive, owns a document, then they have every right to constrain someone who they allow to look at or borrow that document, e.g. not to copy this document. (It is on this basis that some Devon parishes are refusing to allow their parish registers to be published online.) The owners may well have buttressed their rights by requiring you to sign a form acknowledging the constraint beforehand - but merely telling you is sufficient, since the notion of a contract does not depend on any actual paperwork or signatures. But if you are the legal owner of a document, or you have not entered into any contract that binds you in some way, and the content of the document is not copyright, then there is no legal impediment to your providing transcriptions - but see below.
Copyright typically exists in any published document until 70 years after the death of the author, whereas Crown Copyright typically exists for 50 years after publication or, in the case unpublished documents, for 125 years after the date of creation. To copy or publish substantial parts of a work in copyright you have in general to obtain permission.
For up-to-date, detailed advice about copyright and crown copyright matters see the various documents listed in:
http://www.genuki.org.uk/org/standards.html#Acceptable
Luckily, since 1999, Crown Copyright has been waived in the contents of most unpublished public records held in The National Archives and other official archives, such as county record offices, so such documents (which include census records) can be transcribed and the transcriptions made available electronically, e.g. via the DEVON mailing list or in GENUKI/Devon, without any need to seek prior permission. However, the archive holding the original document should be identified, and its catalogue number included. (Note that this waiver applies only to transcriptions, not to actual photographic or scanned digital images of documents, such as images obtained via DocumentsOnline.)
In those cases where there is a requirement that explicit permission be obtained, the transcription should be accompanied by evidence that such permission has been sought and received. (This is typically the case with church documents, when a statement naming the authority, e.g. the relevant vicar, who has given permission will suffice.)
Note that some societies, as a contractual restriction on the purchaser of their publications, disallow the public offering of free (or paid-for) lookups from these publications. The reason for such a restriction is obvious - if lots of people provided such a service, relatively few copies would be sold, probably not enough to cover the cost of publication. (A particular case in point is the FFHS's National Burial Index.) It is therefore important that the DEVON mailing list not be used to "advertise" a willingness to do lookups of material contrary to the original supplier's wishes. However, there is no impediment to providing look-ups of, for example, parish register microfiches or census records.
The bottom line is that we must do everything we can to build a climate of trust and cooperation with the relevant archive and church authorities, as well as cement our existing cooperation with organisations such as the Devon Record Office and the Devon Family History Society. Thus the letter of the law is less important than the spirit of the law - only by being careful not to offend the people who possess information, in the various libraries, archives, churches, societies, etc., can we retain their continued cooperation. So when there is any doubt you should request permission beforehand, rather than rely on a narrow and perhaps arguable interpretation of the letter of the law to justify your posting. (This applies particularly to Devon parish register transcriptions, given the sensitivities involved.)
In summary, all of this is easily understandable by putting oneself in the position of the person or organisation that owns the original information, or that has laboured hard to produce some publication, and considering how some activity would look from this point of view.
Last updated: 7 Jul 2011 - Brian Randell