Hi to all researchers,

The project is moving along very nicely and a lot quicker than we had imagined.
Thanks to the many people who have offered to help with the transcribing the
parish records. The number of volunteers that have come forward to assist has
certainly exceeded our expectations.

Graham Davison has been doing a splendid job in co-ordinating the project. His
hardest task has been is trying to keep everybody happy by providing them with
material so they can all get on with doing some transcribing of the records.

Microfiche have been sent to many of the volunteers but because of the cost and
delay in obtaining them in this form, Graham has been experimenting with an
alternative way. Graham and May, together with their digital cameras and a
Laptop computer paid a visit to the Gloucester Records Office and returned with
over one thousand images which have been distributed to volunteers on a CD.

On the web site we now have 17 parishes which we have some records of which you
can search. Most of the records were of transcribed prior to the formation of
our project but now we are well underway ourselves regular additions are
starting to happen. You will need to keep your eyes on the dates of the records
in the indexes as it is not always obvious more records have been added.

We are very fortunate to have amongst us Michael Williamson who as well as being
a volunteer also has quite a lot of expertise in programming web sites using php
and MySQL. Michael contacted me a few weeks back offering to help in enhancing
the search facilities for the parish records.

Since then, Michael has put together a prototype search facility which we are
testing at present. It will make searching a lot easier as you will be able to
search for a person in all parishes and events at the same time and also within
a date range.    

A few weeks ago I changed the Membership Management program which controls
access to the Members Area on the web site. New password were sent to all
registered members, if for any reason you did not receive a new password or you
have lost it you can obtain it by clicking on the "Forgot My Password' link at:
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/?Members_Area

If you are having any problems logging in to the members area please read what
is on the Help page and the FAQ page before sending an e-mail as it will often
answer the question(s) you might have. This will save yourself and me a lot of
time.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/?Members_Area

Thanks for your support