The following is a message put out by Graham Davison, Project Coordinator of the
Forest of Dean Transcription project.

We have now completed photographing the 1812-1900+ registers of 43
Gloucestershire parishes and have placed everything out for transcription except
for 7 registers which I have on fiche. At the last count there were only 41
registers left to complete, and I am hoping that most of these will be done by
the end of July. We have also started on both the Non-Conformist and pre-1812
registers and have quite a lot of imagery in stock.

As a number of researchers have expressed an interest in the border parishes we
decided to make this our next priority and I am greatly indebted to May Brace
for her efforts in getting us access to the Herefordshire records. I had written
to the Record Office some weeks ago, but despite a reminder had not received a
reply. May rang them up and found that they were happy to produce the original
registers for us to photograph, transcribe and publish on the website, provided
we could show them that we had the consent of the incumbent Ministers. May then
wrote around, got the necessary permissions and found that the Ministers were
really quite enthusiastic about the project. Four of us then visited the Record
Office in mid-May and photographed a total of 30 registers for the period
1812-1900+.

Our most urgent need now is for more transcribers. After 18 months I am finding
that many of the existing volunteers either need a break or are moving on to
other things, so if you have some time to spare and would like to participate
please let us know.

Graham Davison
Project Coordinator