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Archiver > DEVON > 2003-08 > 1060209191


From:
Subject: Re: [DEV] OPC Scheme
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 18:33:11 EDT


As I see it, the success of the OPC scheme has been to make available a band
of dedicated volunteers who collate and pass on information about their
respective parishes.

Like other OPCs, I took my turn to buy the DRO fiche parish registers (which
vary from extensive to downright minimal) for quite a lot of money, and I make
the information available to those that ask - and, in return, quite a few
reciprocate with their own pedigrees, copy documents and so on. That's fun,
useful and rewarding.

I'm gradually transcribing the PRs so someday they can go on a website and
Genuki, but like many others, I have a daytime job, 100 emails a day in the
evening, and this all takes time. I still regard myself as an amateur. I was the
guilty party a couple of weeks ago, 13 days to respond to research I
volunteered to provide (a week of which I was abroad). At the moment, I hope we're doing
enough.

I would just like to say that, at the beginning, it seemed like one way
traffic. Now I get so many contributions from other listers that my indexes and
database are beginning to heave, that's really great. Add to that the daily
exchanges about this and that family, all helps to build up a greater knowledge of
the parishes we look after. Quite a few of us live hundreds of miles from
them, some of us on the other side of the world to boot.

Chris Graves
OPC Sidbury & Salcombe Regis

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