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the following has been posted on FB
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Free UK Genealogy Trustee Dave Mayall writes:
As a trustee of Free UK Genealogy, I can say with absolute certainty that the central plank of Dr Seakin’s message on Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter (that we intend to make any of the sites pay per view) is completely untrue, and the text that is set out there has NOT come from the trustees.
What we ARE proposing is to make our data available as “open data”, which will mean that anybody can re-use that data. That could include people who re-use it commercially, but we will still have it online, free of charge.
Should you be worried about this? Well, rest assured that I and the other trustees have worried about it for several years. Of course, we are concerned that we should do the right thing, and that we shouldn’t leave people thinking we are doing the wrong thing.
So, why open data?
Well, whilst we have achieved much, in bringing all that data to people free of charge, we have come to realise that something was happening that we never really considered back in 1999 (yes, that is how long FreeBMD has been with us). Basically, the data set that we have transcribed is so huge that it seems very unlikely that anybody else would do it again, but WE own that data, and that means that it is only as useful as WE let it be.
If somebody else has a good idea about using that data to make it even more useful to genealogists, then they can’t do it, and unless we negotiate an agreement with them (or we develop the idea ourselves) that good idea will never happen.
Now that isn’t what we are about!
So, we want to say to all those people out there who think they can do something clever with that data “Go, do something clever”.
Some of them will do something clever and make some money from it. Others will do clever things for free, and still others will see people making money from the data and decide to do something similar for free.
Basically, unless what somebody wants to do with the data is HUGELY clever, somebody else will do the same thing for free, so there will be little incentive for the pay sites to do simple stuff here, because if they do, somebody else will pull the rug from under them.
So, there you have it.
People will be able to use our data. They can even charge people for their end product, but we are sure that there will be plenty of new FREE content created, and that anybody who created a paid-for version of FreeBMD, FreeCEN or FreeREG would make no money!
Above all, the existing FREE sites (or rather new, revamped, FREE sites in some cases) will still be there.
.............
Original, from which it was copied, is here
http://www.freeukgenealogy.org.uk/blog/2016/07/25/free-forever/
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If you read ALL of the posted link including the "Replies" right at the end you will see the disclaimer from one of the Trustees of Free Genealogy saying that the proposal is charge other "sites" for the use of their info not us ordinary folks !
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Of possible/passing interest. Emailed to me (a volunteer on Freecen) 16Jul2016
In particular note the statement at the bottom.
Thank you for your patience. We have final drafts below that we would welcome your comments on. There are a lot of documents, so please do not worry if looking through them and commenting on them is not something which interests you, or you don’t have time to do. The deadline for response is Saturday 27th August 2016.
Free UK Genealogy is a community, and therefore we feel that inviting current and past volunteers to help with choosing the Licence and creating the Agreement, and associated papers has been the right thing to do.
The licence we have chosen, after obtaining legal advice is: the Open Database License Version 1.0. There is a human-readable summary here: http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/ which contains a link to the actual licence.
We would like your help to clarify the wording of the Agreement and the various FAQ related to the Licence and Agreement so that people in the future can understand why Open Data makes best use of their work, and are not put off becoming a volunteer by legal jargon. Please email any suggestions, or requests for any document in another format to [email protected].
You will find below links to word and pdf versions of:
•The Agreement (word and pdf, 3 pages)
•Information which we will send out to existing volunteers with the invitation to sign the agreement (word and pdf, 8 pages)
•FAQs which we will place on the websites alongside the agreement, for new volunteers (word and pdf, 2 pages)
•FAQs for those who would like to provide us with already existing transcriptions (word and pdf, 1 page)
•FAQs for those who would like to use our open data (our data which is not made open will not be shared) (word and pdf, 1 page).
After the final wording of the Agreement is adopted by the Trustees of Free UK Genealogy CIO, probably early in September, we will ask current and previous volunteers to sign the agreement.
We will also be asking all new volunteers to sign the Agreement, as a condition of being a part of a Free UK Genealogy project. This will mean that we can begin a big push in recruitment for all projects. We are spending the summer building our contacts so that we can reach as many people as possible.
We have also put the 'Information before Signup' - information about Open Data, the Licence and Agreement here which you may find helpful. It contains a link to the previous, now outdated FAQ, which it replaces. Please do also send me any additional questions you have.
With many thanks for your continuing work on FreeCEN and support for Free UK Genealogy,
Pat Reynolds
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Dr Pat Reynolds
Executive Director
Free UK Genealogy
A charity registered in England and Wales, number 1096940, transitioning to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered in England and Wales, number 1167484
VAT registration: 233 0105 70
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Thanks Rollo I have indeed 'been there and done that ' lol, but always useful to have a reminder, not for my own tree anymore, I have gone as far as I can with that really but I do a lot of searches for other people and find that, given the limited info they sometimes have, a quick search there is the kick start needed to go further over on paid sites :-)
Supercrutch, thanks for reminding me with mention of Wales, that I want to post this site link elsewhere :-D
http://www.northwalesbmd.org.uk/
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I use Free BMD for quick searches, pick up all possibles and then check the results on paid for sites.
It certainly is the fastest way to search without unwanted records being offered which are simply a distraction.
No online records are 100% accurate even on the very expensive sites we pay for. Omissions are a nightmare and errors in transcription are laughable at times.
When I am looking for Jones births in Bedwellty between 1900 and 1915 I am going to get faster and more accurate results as the registration district hasn't been tampered with.
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For Rambling Rose
yes, FreeBMD has a much better search , GR's is not bad and Ay terrible - but that is no excuse for the poor quality of the data.
You may find this useful, apologies if you use it already.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers.htm#PageTitle
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Given the search parameter problems with both FMP and Anc' I do find freebmd is the quickest way to do an initial search. I would rather pay for that than for GR ;-)
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The work has all been done for free by volunteers who def. did not expect charges to be imposed. I think that they envisage charges for professional family historians only which is fair enough. Ay def. pay and get an enhanced verison.
Despite FreeBMD claims it is full of bugs. They have a clunky system for reporting transcription errors but that is all. Trans. errors take about 2 months to update - I have given them over 100 which were all accepted. If the fiche itself is in error they won't update it.
Beyond that even for years they claim as 100% complete there are many missing records.
As well as that great chunks of marriage records are missing with one or more people omitted from a page or duplicated. Sometimes it is poss. to work out the error but there is no way to report it except "postem" which FreeBMD never read.
The essential problem is that FreeBMD regard the GRO Index (St Cathjerines) itself as perfect when it is anything but. I hate to think how many people's FH research has been mucked up by over rating FreeBMD. It is not generally realised that the GRO Index given out by Ay and FreeBMD has further information or that it is NOT the original index but a secondary one created from local register submissions.
If they start charging they'll have to sort out the mess and about time too. Meanwehile this will help if you are all at sea with some records.
http://www.theshipslist.com/Forms/BMD.shtml
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This is disturbing.
One condition that archives impose when releasing PR film/fiche etc for transcription is that the transcriptions should not be used for commercial purposes. If we have to pay to access, it's 'Commercial'.
If the group start to charge for access, they'll want a kick-back. Then any fee already imposed with have to rise.
If they haven't already done so, perhaps they should be seeking sponsorship from the Lottery Fund, Government funding (Culture) or even come to some arrangement with Family Search to use their Servors.
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Well why would we pay to look up just bmds when other subs sites have more info than that
Think they will lose out
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