*********** IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO TRANSCRIBERS *********
We will shortly complete the allocation of 1936 marriages and will be issuing 1937 marriages next. You will have noticed some changes to districts in 1936 and more will be introduced in 1937. Two of these will cause a problem as the shortened version used will not be accepted by WinBMD which not allow the use of digits in district names. A new version of WinBMD will be available soon, but please use the following alternative naming until it is available. If you stick exactly to the names below we will be able to get the files altered in bulk on FreeBMD. We are not aware of any other problems but please let us know if you find any.
Shown on Scan Please use
Nthmbld.N.1st . Nthmbld.N.First
Nthmbld.N.2nd. Nthmbld.N.Second
It is possible to edit the files outside of WinBMD to force your entry match the scan so you may do that if you wish instead of using the suggested form above
We are upgrading service over night 13/14 th Jan 2009. we may be slow in coming up on the 15th. As Alan will also be going away for rest of Jan and Feb. Please contact Derek to report problems. Or use Scan2 List
We are upgrading service over night 14/15 th Jan 2009. we may be slow in coming up on the 15th. As Alan will also be going away for rest of Jan and Feb. Please contact Derek to report problems. Or use Scan2 List
FreeBMD have reported that work has been completed on transferring the group of servers and that update of completed files may now be resumed. However any transcribers not using the latest version of WinBMD (version 5), could find that the automatic upload process in WinBMD will not work. If that happens please upload your outstanding completed files using File Management accessed from the left hand menu on the scan2 homepage. We would however suggest that all WinBMD transcribers upgrade to the latest versions of WinBMD and BMDverify. It would also be a good time for SpeedBMD transcribers to transfer to WinBMD as SpeedBMD is not now supported.
The WinBMD upgrade can be found on http://www.freebmd.org.uk/addons/winbmd/
The BMDverify update is accessed using http://bmdverify.itendia.co.uk/bmdv3/bmdv3.html
Please let us know if your encounter any problems with uploading files or upgrading to WinBMD version5.
To All Scan2 transcribers
From next Monday 30th June to Saturday 6th July FreeBMD will be carrying out important work to the system. For a full explaination please see below. For scan2 transcribers the following is a summary of now you will be affected.
From Monday 30th June at 09.00 GMT until further notice please DO NOT upload any files to FreeBMD using either the link from WinBMD or the manual upload proceedure. If you send files they may appear to have been received but they most probably will be lost.
All aspects of Scan2 will be operating as usual so please submit finished work to scan2 so that you receive new allocations. Retain copies of the files so you can send to FreeBMD when you are informed that it is safe to do so.
Access to scans should be maintained during this period but it may be wise to download scans of pages already allocated to you prior to Monday to help reduce load on the FreeBMD system during this period
We suggest that you refrain from making corrections to files during this period
After things return to normal and after the next update to FreeBMD due in mid July we shall do checks that files that are sent to scan2 also show on FreeBMD.
If you have any questions or problems please contact us
Alan & Derek
FreeBMD SERVER UPGRADE
As many of you will already be aware, due to the retirement of some of our older hardware, and reliability issues with two of our servers, we have been running at close to capacity for some months.
In order to resolve this issue, four new servers are due to be added to the web farm shortly. At the same time, we will take two ailing servers out of service temporarily for remedial work, leaving a lotal of nine servers in service.
As part of this installation, we are also taking the opportunity to move all our servers from The Bunker datacentre at Ash in Kent to The Bunker datacentre at Newbury in Berkshire.
This presents some unique challenges in terms of maintaining service during the various server moves, and in order to ensure that the main search services continue uninterupted during the move, it will be necessary to disable some transcriber and co-ordinator facilities during the move.
It is planned to start the move at 09:00 GMT (10:00 BST) on Monday 30th June, and to complete it by 17:00 GMT (18:00 BST0 on Saturday 5th July.
Throughout this period, file upload, transcriber registration, syndicate maintenance and co-ordinator reporting facilities will be unavailable.
Transcribers are particularly asked to note that whilst we will arrange for suitable "Unavailable" messages to appear where possible, there will be times during the move when this will not be possible, and transcribers attempting to access these facilities may encounter unfamiliar error messages.
There will also be times during the process where these parts of the site appear to be functioning properly, due to limitations in our facilities to manipulate access restrictions. You are strongly advised NOT to attempt to use any of the facilities until advised that the site is available again. Files uploaded and changes made may well be lost, and the process of making the switch may be prolonged. Please don't think "I'll just try to see if it is working again yet". A further message will be sent when it is workingagain.
This instruction has been discontinued on 16 February as promised
Please use "Send to Scan2" instead
Please read section 24 in the Help file that has been updated for sending Files to Derek
If you are having difficulty Loging in please Email derek@scan2.org and provide your FreeBMD ID and Password
Please read section 24 in the Help file that has been updated for sending Files to Derek
Analysis of recently submitted files shows that many transcribers are still using incorrect volume numbers for the above districts. These transcribers will without doubt get dozens of requests for corrections requests in coming months.
From 1913 onwards Dudley is found in volume 6b and Kings N in volume 6d.
Please check carefully that you use the correct volume for these two
districts.
DUDLEY 6b
KINGS N 6d
Derek has now found out what went wrong with the update last night and reports that he believes the problem has been fixed and is unlikely to be repeated.
Unfortunatly we find ourselves in a position where we are unable to restore the database to the position it was prior to the update and we are frankly in a bit of a mess.
Derek has run an update during the day today which has restored some elements which were lost in the faulty update but the following problems remain.
Allocations of pages from 1864 marriages made on the 26th 27th 28th were lost in last nights update and these pages were reallocated last night to different transcribers. We are unable to restore these allocations automatically and regrettably do not have a retained record of them. The only solution is going to be to adopt the allocations as currently showing on the website. However if you are able to let me know of allocations made to you which you have sent to Derek since 12.00GMT today or which you have started to transcribe I will restore those allocations to you. We appreciate that this will be a muddled and confusing situation over the next few days and would not take this action if we thought we had any other viable option.
Do send in all pages you transcribe even if the allocation has disappeared from your page. We will ensure that each page is credited to you though it might take us a while to catch up with all these pages.
Some pages are shown on transcribers pages as open assignments when they have in fact been transcribed and submitted. These are identifyable by the fact that a received date is showing against the entry. Derek will be trying to correct these for the update to run at 23.00 GMT on the 31st January. If after that update there are still pages of this type please let me know.
Many pages transcribed and submitted are showing against the wrong transcriber. This problem should be restricted to 1864 marriages. I shall be checking all submitted pages today and tomorrow and will be correcting these manually. If there are pages you have submitted not showing against your name by Wednesday please also let me know.
In order to make it easier to recover from this situation we have switched automatic allocations to 1909 births for the next few days and will resume 1864 marriages once we are sure everything has settled down. If you are aware of any other strange effects of the update please let us know.
We can only say sorry for the confusion and thanks for your patience.
Regards Alan
Sorry to repeat this again but on looking at the error counts on pages submitted it seems some transcribers are trying to transcribe pages which are simple not up to it. PLEASE DO NOT DO SO. Correcting transcripts which are full of errors is slower than transcribing anew and we request that you reject pages where you cannot transcribe correctly more than 90% of entries, so we can get them done to a high standard first time.
We fortunately have volunteers ( heros every one ) who will take on poor quality scans checking their output with film at their local record centre or history society, so poor pages are routed to those transcribers and good ouput results. A couple more volunteers to undertake this task for 1865 files would be welcome.
To reject a scan Email "1307 Tyerman, Alan" As of 1st July Final implementation of the relocated pages on the Scan2 site. Your Member's page has moved to a PHP file rather than an HTML
One advantsge is that web crawlers will no longer be able to see your email address
As of 1st June We are relocating some pages on the Scan2 site. Your Member's page is moving to a PHP file rather than an HTML
file. This will have no effect on you, other than the data will now be more up-to-date. Currently some updates do not reach
the old pages until you "Send to Derek" your next completed pages.
At the top of your page (old style) has been added a new link to the new style page. To see in just select the submit button.
(People using the "Members Page" from the bottom Menu are already
using the new pages. The change applies to those who have bookmarked their page ( i.e. the format www.scan2.org/M1234,html )
As of 1st May Don't forget to use your FreeBMD ID and PW to get scans. This replaces transcriber/transcriber
We have started a new Era for Scan2.
We have started allocating some of the Original Hand Written Registers.
There are two things that are different. The Page Number must be taken from the scan name.
And in WinBMD you MUST set the Letter field in the Header to the First letter on the first
Surname of the page you are transcribing.
It you do not do this my processing of pages "Sent to Derek" will not work correctly to give
you new allocations and update your Scan2 web page.
FreeBMD has experienced a Hard Disk problem on the Server that handles the supply of scans for Transcription.
The system has been repaired and the Scans are being
reloaded from the Backup. Till this has been completed the special PW / ID for getting scans has been disabled.
The system is expected to be running again within 48 hours.
Also in WinBMD for the current Death allocations in the 1840's don't forget to set the option "Ignore Age at Death"
and leave the age field blank.
Without doing this you will get a message from WimBMD "Error in line 2 file not uploaded". It is looking for an age value.
You may now upload finished transcriptions again and get your new allocations.
A reminder that Sue Burton is taking a break due to Heavy Private Work Load. So she will no longer be helping us and
will not be answering emails on Scan2 or FreeBMD
Some pages are still not available to display till we get the whole system back on line (Disk Space is the current problem).
For those getting scans that do not open in WinBMD but give the message "This is not a valid Image file, please try another,
The scan is there and IS VALID but it uses a newer version of the .TIF specification..
WinBMD and VerifyBMD still use the older specification, they cannot therefore read some files.
Their next version will be updated for this among other improvements.
Till then the easiest way is to open the scan in Irfanview ( or your favorite graphics program) ,
I say Irfanview as it is what I use for the scanning process and is a Free program from the Internet.
Then save the scan as a JPG format file. Now open the JPG scan in WinBMD and it will work OK.
Trying by Downloading it again does nothing but wastes your time and effort as it was right the first time..
You may now upload finished transcriptions again. Some pages may not display till we get the whole system back on line.
But go ahead and use what is there. "Send to Derek" is OK.
Some members pages may not be there. The "Year List" status pages are not there,
but you can use "New Stat" instead.
To find your page Please use "Members Page" and enter either your number or your FreeBMD ID.
Our problem at this time is restricted disk space.
You may now upload finished transcriptions again.
Please check the file management pages to ensure that all your pages on FreeBMD are NON ZERO length in length.
If any pages show as
Zero Length, then just sent it again from WinBMD as a replacement. Or replace it through " file management pages ".
Please do not upload finished transcriptions until the Hardwqare is fixed.
You should however continue to send the transcriptions to me by "Send to Derek" as you finish each page.
This will ensure you continue to get new allocations to transcribe.
Our move is now completed and there seem to be no problems.
The bottom line menu has changed.
The old one can be activated by selecting "Old Menu" The long list of years was removed and can
be found by selecting "Year List"
A more flexable "Members A-Z" is now available and will replace the current ones in the "Main Menu"
It will load much faster as
it is now for one letter only, also It can select on ID or Email address. For those worried about Email Addresses They are now
in a database and not in WWW pages. So the Search engines will not be able to find them.
Lastly Sue Burton is taking a break and only supporting training for Scan2. Please address your Questions to
"1650 Hambling, Lucille Linda" This is a warning Scan2.org will be moved in the next few days to a new HOST.
Therefore when this happens there will be some disruption in Service.
The "Send to Derek" will be removed over this period but the "Send to Derek at CAM" will still operate throughout.
Email at Scan2.org and FTP will be disabled for a longer period while files are transferred(So no changes to files get lost).
The Site itself will have downtime kept to a minimum during the move (reading of static files).
When updating file for the currect 1902 correction project. You MUST send me a copy of the updated file. and if using Wordpad
is must be saved as a "Text Document" not as a "RTF Document"
If you don't have a copy of the file. When in the file on FreeBMD do a copy and then paste into Notepad on your computer.
You now have a copy to send to me.
Due to the large amount of Spam I am receiving I have had to Immplement McAfee Spam Killer. While this has reduced
my incoming mail by 60%. It has unfortunately stop some of your real mail as well. So my Appologies are in Order.
If I have ignored you I am sorry. If you now don't get an answer in a couple of Days please resend.
The missing scans in 1878B1-537 through 1878b1-592 and 78 B 2 346 through 612 are now available.
Some time ago I failed to notice that the upload of new scans had failed. 78 B 2 346 through 612 were affected.
Of these scans, only pages 346 through 493 have recently (on the 29th and 30th Jan) been allocated.
These are not available on GUS untill it's next rebuild. (7 to 10 days time)
They have now been uploaded ready for that rebuild.
SOLUTION --- I have allocated the same pages in 78 B 3 (346 through 493) which are available for you to
transcribe in the mean time. Do these first and by then the 78 B 2 should then be available.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
I have left the alternate version of "Send to Derek at CAM" The "Send to Derek" Version is now working again.
Please Do not Email pages any more.
I have set up an alternate version of "Send to Derek at CAM" Please use this to send me pages. Do not Email any more.
Our ISP has moved up to another server to fix the Hard Disk Problems. This server is not quite the same configuration
Hence the Send to Derek has had to be disabled untill it can be fixed.
Please send pages the old way attached to Emails and Zipped Please.
Download the latest version of BMDVerify (vsn 2.1.6 or higher). It is now set up to handle 6 columns so as to handle
the Double Page Scans.
Having tried various formats. The best choice is the following. It is a must where the two pages are not adjecent page numbers.
This works best on both FreeBMD and Scan2.
On FreeBMD -- The ending +page of a page does not need a number but accepts a number that is usually the first page +1
on single paged files.
It's purpose is to signify the end of the transcribed page (complete page).
The start of a transcription page must have a number that is the number of the transcription that follows.
On Scan2 -- The same rule applies. The problem lies in my allocation routine.
It allocates the left page only. If the page contains two pages it shows the flags all under the "TYP" or "FIX"(ed) for the
first page.
If the second page is sent separately then it assumes it is the same transcriber as the +PAGE minus one
(or 003 in the above example).
This credits it to the wrong transcriber, unless the two pages are adjecent (most are, but there are a lot that are not )
So for all double pages the best result is for both pages to be in one file, with the +PAGE lines as the example above
(with the numbers adjusted according to your specific scan)..
Sue Burton is on Vacation till 10 Sept 2003 so yor will not
get any replies from her till then.
Derek is overloaded with E-Mail so do not expect fast replies>
NOTE There seems to be some confusion over the new RED message please read carefully.
We have added a new message in RED on your scan2 WWW page.
There are two things you have to do each time you finish transcribing a page.
What the RED message signifies is step one is done but step two is not.
This file needs to be uploaded to FreeBMD not Scan2.
Scan2 has it but a computer check with FreeBMD shows it is missing there.
Please upload this file to FreeBMD through "File Management" on FreeBMD
or upload this file to FreeBMD through "FreeBMD Upload" on Scan2 Main Menu.
Do NOT use "Send to Derek"
NOTE New allocations for Births 1889 - 1891 Have TWO pages on each scan.
Preffered method. -----
Please do both pages as one file. The source should show the scan filename,
The [AAA-BBB] should use the first three letters of the first surname on the first page
and the first three letters of the last surname on the second page.
There should be a +PAGE,nnn line between each page where nnn is the page number
of the second page.
It is also acceptable to do each page as a seperate file.
Please bookmark our new home http://www.scan2.org/scan2.html
Last revised on 15 Aug 2009 13:22 01/July/2005 --- Implementation of changes to the Scan2 Web Site ---
01/June/2005 --- We are moving some pages on the Scan2 Web Site ---
01/05/2005 --- To get scans don't forget to use your ID and PW ---
18/02/2005 --- 1854 - Welcome to Hand Written Indexes. ---
06/01/2005 --- FreeBMD Scan Problems. ---
23/12/2004 --- From the Scan2 Team. ---
--- Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.---
23/10/2004 --- Scan2 Status and other things.-- Now FIXED.
22/10/2004 --- Scan2 has had a Disk Hardware Problems -- Now FIXED.
12/09/2004 --- FreeBMD has Hardware Problems -- Now FIXED.
31/08/2004 --- FreeBMD has Hardware Problems.
26/03/2004 --- Move of Scan2.org to a new HOST Completed. New Menu structure, and Revised Help Line
04/03/2004 --- Move of Scan2.org to a new HOST and 1902 corrections
Move of Scan2 WWW site
1902 Corections
11/02/2004 --- SPAM.
03/02/2004 --- MISSING SCANS NOW AVAILABLE.
01/02/2004 --- SCAN problem solution.
05/01/2004 --- SEND TO DEREK problem corrected.
21/12/2003 --- SEND TO DEREK problem temporary fix.
19/12/2003 --- SEND TO DEREK problem
29/10/2003 --- BMDVerify and Double Page Scans
26/10/2003 --- Double Page Scans
HEADERS
+PAGE,001
Transcription of first page (called 001 here)
+PAGE,004
Transcription of second page on the scan (called 004 here)
+PAGE,005
30/08/2003
22/07/2003
Copyright © 2000/2009, D.C.Hopkins