The story so far

[This post got a little long and cathartic. I hope that some of you will stay with me for this and follow-up posts.]

As tends to happen, this month I had a last-minute panic about what the January update to the website might be, and specifically how on earth I was going to get it ready in time once I decided what to do! I do think it's important to have an update each month but over time any kind of planning as to what that new content might be has completely gone out the window. This is not good for my stress levels, and not good for the one-place study either. So instead of an update this month I've decided to evaluate what I've achieved so far, along with what I hope to complete over the coming year.

The Wing One Place Study was "born" in late 2004. Initially it was just the 1841 census for Wing, fully transcribed the old-school way. That's typing it up while looking at the census film at the local LDS Family History Centre - yes, 2004, a time before each census was all over the internet, a time when you couldn't even purchase scans of the census on CD so work could be done in your own time at home. In short, a time when a young woman in a business suit showing up at the LDS FHC on her lunchbreak, laptop in hand, raised eyebrows. Back then, the only records otherwise available online for Wing were the 1881 census transcription and the extracts of the Wing parish registers for baptisms and marriages 1546 to 1881 (*cough* peppered with omissions) that could be found in the IGI.

In September 2005 I transferred the 1841 census and a few other bits and pieces to the study's own domain name, and kicked off things in earnest. Since then, three census years have been fully transcribed with up to 1800 people in each, 58 years of baptisms, 34 years of marriages, 127 years of burials, 23 directories, 43 wills, 56 gravestones, 13 other types of lists of landowners/residents from 1522 to 1873,  220 military men identified, 67 criminals, dozens of Wing non-conformist families, three-and-a-half key industries profiled, and various other pages of snippets of data have been collated.

The Wing OPS costs around NZ $220 a year in hosting/domain costs - that's currently around £110. However the real cost is obviously the time involved. And, honestly, the stress I create for myself from my expectation that every record should already be transcribed, every idea should already be fully realised, and every email should be able to be promptly answered without a thousand apologies for the information I might be able to provide if only I had been able to do things as completely as I should have. Being a Type A personality is not helpful sometimes.

As we head into 2012, digital scans of each census released to date along with more or more-commonly-less reliable census indices are easily accessible on each of the main commercial providers. It looks like 2012 will be the year of the parish registers race as these are also being scanned and indexed by those sites. Does this make an OPSer's efforts in fully transcribing each census and parish register somewhat redundant?

In follow-up posts I'll try and work out what the gameplan should be for the coming year - which information would add most value, what a realistic workload for the project might look like, and create a master list of all those things floating around in my head (or on my computer) that may or may not make the 2012 list. Please do leave some feedback in the comments, particularly if you have ancestors from Wing. After seven years I need an outside perspective!

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's a sunny Christmas day here in NZ (well, it mostly is if I ignore the cloud that's blocking the sun as I type this), just the way we like it, the turkey (this year it's rum glazed with mango and green banana stuffing - what on earth would my ancestors have made of that) is in the oven and it's almost time to start gathering together. I hope you all get the Christmas day you are wishing for.

No December update

There won't be an update to the website this month. Right now I'm on a plane between Antigua and London, spending time with current generations of the family tree. See you next month!

I've come over all lightheaded

I've been hyperventilating with excitement. The British Newspaper Archive is temporarily open in beta form this weekend. You do have to pay to view actual pages rather than snippets of results (£6.95 for 1000 credits, with each newspaper page viewed being 10 credits) but  with no ability to download images during the beta period. However I'll be able to access those pages I paid for once the site goes live, and you bet I'll be back!

As part of the terms and conditions of the beta period I can't share many details of the treasures I discovered - suffice to say the Bucks Herald was one of the newspapers included and there were plenty of results for Wing! One of the first things I found was the newspaper report of the theft accusation involving one JORDAN in 1836 that was a noted point of ill-will in the ADAMS murder case the following year. Also that year was the suicide of a habitually-intoxicated Wing resident, the case of the stolen cowstalls, and the sale of wheat, straw and machinery from Burcott Farm.

 If you preregistered on the site you should have received an email about beta access. Have fun!

November update

As promised, the update is a little late this month.

The links page now includes a a link to the TATHAM website that includes information about Wing's turn-of-the-century (19th to 20th, that is) vicar Francis Henry Tatham, and a couple of the existing links have been updated.

Servicemen HEALD and VALLENTINEs (twin brothers descended from the local farming family) have been added to the WWII  and WWI military men pages respectively. They were identified via the excellent War Graves Photographic Project website and both have gravestones in All Saints churchyard.

Superstar genealogy friends

Isn't it nice to have superstar genealogy friends? The kind that support what you're doing, think of you when they come across something that might be relevant for your research, and generally make you feel all warm and fuzzy about the genealogy community.

One of my superstar genealogy friends is Paul Brazell. Paul recently visited the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, and before he went he emailed me to see if there might be anything he could take a look at for me. I duly compiled a long list (you know, just in case there was some disaster that meant he might be trapped in there for days with nothing to do but photograph and scan records for me) and sent it off. And now I have photographs of the 1797 Wing inclosure map! This will be a great help to my current farm project and for general Wing research.

Did I mention that Paul had much less time at the Centre than expected, due to traffic snarlups? And that he doesn't live in the UK either?

A big public thank you to Paul, all my other superstar genealogy friends, and, indeed, everyone's superstar genealogy friends - you're awesome.

And in case you, my dear reader, find yourself at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies with some spare time up your sleeve and would like to contribute to the Wing One Place Study, here's the rest of my list:

* any tithe maps - I believe there's one for 1851 and I think there's some others as well

* D-X1099/1 (pp 129-205 are Wing) register of farm tenants of the Earl of Chesterfield c.1760-c.1792

* D-X1099/2  (pp 61-102 are Wing and hamlets) - survey including plans of farm tenants of Earl of Chesterfield and other landowners c.1778 - also on microfilm (M 42)

* D-X1099/3 (pp 10-39 are Wing and hamlets) - similar survey but in 1798

* D-X1099/4 (pp 28, 31 and 62-71) similar survey but in 1810

* D 94/48 to D 94/54 documents re properties sold to the Rothschilds 1752-1876

* NC 5/1 Burcott Congregational Chapel church book 1871 to 1913 including admissions and baptisms

* NC 5/11 Burcott Congregational Chapel notebook by Kate HELEY dated 1879-1890 "Scraps and Incidents and Notes of the Lord's Dealings" - would love someone to take a look at this and comment on the kind of things included as I'm very curious about it!

* NMP/401 register of marriages for Church Street Primitive Methodist Chapel 1902-1983

* QS/W/E/234  return of dissenting places of worship 1829

October update

Another month, another update - this time we turn to the farms of Burcott. I've also added links to both the Ascott and Burcott farming pages from the Industries page and, as always, all pages are accessible from the Sitemap.

The monthly update schedule will be slightly altered over the next few months. As you know, you can expect an update to the website each month on the first day of the month. However next month I'll be away at a conference around the 1st, and the following month I'll be at a family wedding, multiple international flights away and out of reach of the internet to boot! So my plan at this stage is to have a small update around 2 November, and no update for December. I'll be trying to get the next farm page ready for the January update - a big job!