You may remember that on joining BFHS, and
similar societies, you were given a blank
pedigree form to fill in with, as far as you knew
them, five generations of your family. Birth
Briefs received until about 1990 have been
indexed and filed in the Research Centre but are
rarely referred to. About a year ago it was
decided to computerise all the BFHS Birth Briefs
to allow easy access and so increase their
usefulness.
We consulted with, and acknowledge great help
from, the Oxfordshire Family History Society (OFHS)
which had already started a similar project. Like
them, we decided to base our system on the Family
Search Personal Ancestral File (PAF) developed by
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
PAY has many advantages, not least being free to
download from the Internet at www.familysearch.org/paf/
and easy to understand and use. Family tree
pedigree charts can be printed out and a
variable, searchable index produced. In addition,
existing data can be updated and new Briefs can
be added as they are submitted. The project
started slowly with just three members as ‘inputters’
while the process was developed and refined. The
paper Birth Briefs (BBs) are photocopied and
batches of 15 are sent to the volunteer for
inputting at home. They started with the ‘oldest’
BBs and now over 3,500 names are indexed.
Initially we concentrated on the standard five
generation charts. A few people have submitted
charts that are far longer (one is 12 generations),
some are descent instead of ascent and others
contain many side branches. For a few, it is
difficult to see how the names on the BB relate
to the BFHS member who made the submission. Later
we will input, when possible, these non-standard
BBs.
Each BB is given a Custom ID e.g. BerksFHS1234.
Where family members have each submitted a brief,
then a suffix letter is added to the Custom ID, e.g.
BerksFHS1234a, BerksFHS1234b. All the names
within a single BB are given the Custom ID of
that Brief. This allows for quick identification
of the relevant Brief.
A PAF file is created for each BB. For each
individual we input all or as much of the
following records as exist in the original paper
copy: full names, sex, nickname, date and place
of birth/christening, marriage and death/burial,
and occupation. Short notes such as ‘Had six
children’ are also included. The individual
PAF files of the BBs are collected into the PAF
main file from which we create an index. The
Index will allow a surname search which will show
the year and county of birth/christening,
marriage and of death/burial and, most
importantly, the Custom ID. The searcher may then
request a printout of a PAF chart and ask to be
put in touch with the submitter if he/she is
still a member. For reasons of privacy, only the
name and no further details will be included in
the Index and the BB printout for persons born
less than 110 years ago and for whom we do not
have a death/burial date.
It is planned to place the Birth Brief Index
for self-searching on the BFHS website at www.berksfhs.org.uk/birthbriefs/
which can be accessed from home, from the
Research Centre in Reading or from an Internet
café or library anywhere in the world. We regret
that no postal searches will be available at this
time. Once the search facility is up and running
the website will give details of how to obtain
the Birth Brief chart or be put in touch with the
submitter.
Most Briefs were prepared when the member
joined BFHS and perhaps knew little of their
ancestors; they may now know more or maybe have
found errors in their original submission. Other
members did not send in BBs. Enclosed with this
edition of the Berkshire Family Historian are
blank forms so that members may update their data
or submit a Brief if they have not done so before.
Please send these to Birth Briefs at Yeomanry
House.
If anyone would like to help input Birth
Briefs, work which is easily done at home during
odd moments of time, please email
or write to
the Projects Co-ordinator at Yeomanry House, 131
Castle Hill, Reading, Berkshire RG1 7TJ.
with any queries
