27,000
people and more than 250,000 dates - slow but steady
progress. CHD 1 May 2015
The
latest index update includes information on 26,000 people and more
than 5,000 ships.
Initial
work exploring the possibilitiy of tracking lowerdeck people from
ship to ship in the 1740s has shown positive albeit slow
progress. While handwriting has sometimes been difficult, the
frequent name spelling changes, even within the same manuscript, have
been a real test of the data-capture processes evolved over the years.
For
the first time, work based on this project has appeared in
print. I hope that Warrant Officers of the Royal Navy, 1695-1751,
published by the List & Index Society in July 2014, may be of
interest, and give some insight into the methods used to extract real
value from these challenging sources.
Any
suggestions for positive change or improvement are always
welcome. CHD 1 Jan 2015