Author Topic: Welsh Wills Going Online  (Read 5349 times)

Offline Rol

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Welsh Wills Going Online
« on: Thursday 17 September 09 05:33 BST (UK) »
As most will know,  the National Library of Wales is the custodian of wills proved and administrations granted by the church courts in Wales pre-1858.  The library has been engaged in a long term project to digitise the entire collection,  and the work is virtually complete.  For the last few months the documents have been available online to readers within the library,  and full availability on the web has been thought imminent for some weeks.

Well . . . I have just managed to get two randomly selected wills up on-screen remotely.  They may still be doing occasional pre-release testing,  or planning a soft launch.  But D-Day seems pretty imminent -- and,  just maybe, "we have lift-off!" and full worldwide accessibility has gone live.  Fingers crossed,  anyway . . .

I was told that looking at the images was intended to be free (it was),  but the software would block screen-shots (didn't try);  and so copies would,  initially at least,  have to be ordered from the library in the usual way.

With the current money squeeze,  I do wonder whether some variant on the pay-per-view theme will be far behind.


Rol

(Crown and other relevant copyrights acknowledged, including - but without limitation to - census information from wwwnationalarchives.gov.uk)

Offline Koromo

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Re: Welsh Wills Going Online
« Reply #1 on: Thursday 17 September 09 08:03 BST (UK) »

Gasp! I've just been looking at some wills which confirm one of my direct lines (some of whose wills I already have on paper), but I may have now got back a further generation.

It's brilliant!

Thank you, Rol, for posting the news.

:D
Koromo
Census information is Crown copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
____________________________________________________________

Lewis: Llanfair Kilgeddin | Abergavenny | NZ
Stallworthy: Bucks. | Samoa | NZ
Brothers: Nottingham | NZ
Darling: Dunbar | Tahiti
Keat: St Minver | NZ
Bowles: Deal | NZ
Coaney: Bucks.
Jones: Brecon

Offline Rol

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Re: Welsh Wills Going Online
« Reply #2 on: Thursday 17 September 09 19:00 BST (UK) »

I was told that looking at the images was intended to be free (it was),  but the software would block screen-shots (didn't try);  and so copies would,  initially at least,  have to be ordered from the library in the usual way.

Funny thing is ,  the site has just let me grab a perfectly adequate 604 KB TIFF image from the screen (for a will page with relatively little text on it) -- and my computer seems to be able to blow the image up with only minor pixellation.  Maybe copying is temporarily unblocked,  for trial purposes.


Rol



(Crown and other relevant copyrights acknowledged, including - but without limitation to - census information from wwwnationalarchives.gov.uk)


Offline Koromo

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Re: Welsh Wills Going Online
« Reply #3 on: Saturday 19 September 09 00:05 BST (UK) »


... Funny thing is, the site has just let me grab a perfectly adequate 604 KB TIFF image from the screen (for a will page with relatively little text on it) -- and my computer seems to be able to blow the image up with only minor pixellation.  Maybe copying is temporarily unblocked,  for trial purposes.

Rol



I haven't worked out how to efficiently grab images (not without a LOT of patience!) because I'm too busy checking out names. And yes, I've definitely got back one generation on one line, and on another important line I've at least make a chink in the wall.

I'm over the moon!  :D

K.
Census information is Crown copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
____________________________________________________________

Lewis: Llanfair Kilgeddin | Abergavenny | NZ
Stallworthy: Bucks. | Samoa | NZ
Brothers: Nottingham | NZ
Darling: Dunbar | Tahiti
Keat: St Minver | NZ
Bowles: Deal | NZ
Coaney: Bucks.
Jones: Brecon

Offline heitch

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Re: Welsh Wills Going Online
« Reply #4 on: Saturday 19 September 09 13:57 BST (UK) »
I can print the images, although that "box" in the  top left corner is a pain >:(
Powell, Montgomeryshire
Venables, Montgomeryshire
Davies, Llanbedr & Llanfihangel y Traethau, Merionethshire
Jason, Caernarvonshire & Merionethshire

Offline Rol

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Re: Welsh Wills Going Online
« Reply #5 on: Saturday 19 September 09 18:10 BST (UK) »


There are a lot of pixels in the underlying images,  as becomes obvious if you try full zoom.  To take a screen shot one wants as big a share of those pixels as one can get,  so the browser window needs to be set large enough to show the full extent of the in-page viewer window.  Then the document itself can be zoomed to fill the width of the viewer and display the best practical quality on offer.

I have been using Apple's "Grab" software.  That allows one to use its Select option to define the area of the viewer window from which one wants a TIFF image taken -- and so crop away the top strip that is marred by the navigation box.  The usable part of the viewer is inevitably reduced as a result,  so two or three shots are needed for each sheet of the document.  That's a bore,  but it does the job in reasonably hi-def. quality.

The small maximum size of the site's viewer window was probably chosen to ensure that when a document is displayed at a small enough scale to allow its entirety to appear,  then the DPI will be too low to permit good quality reproduction.  But two or three shots per page in exchange for high quality seems a tolerable trade-off for practical research use,  as opposed to pretty-pretty repro purposes.  And I would guess that skilled users of graphics software packages (not me!) could happily knit the separate images together again.

I notice from another site that someone has had success with an older edition of Adobe Paintshop: see this link.

It would be interesting to hear from other will-hunters who have a better grasp of these technical matters than me (not a high threshold to cross!) -- both for Windows and OS X operating systems.


Rol

(Crown and other relevant copyrights acknowledged, including - but without limitation to - census information from wwwnationalarchives.gov.uk)

Offline Koromo

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Re: Welsh Wills Going Online
« Reply #6 on: Saturday 19 September 09 21:42 BST (UK) »

The print screen key on a Windows keyboard just does a screen dump into memory (ie. copies the whole screen onto the clipboard) which you can then paste into a graphics program, like Photoshop, Paint, etc, to crop out the unnecessary bits - no doubt there are better utilities/programs around.

I'm also on a Mac and I've been using a Dashboard widget called Screenshot Plus which also allows you to select a portion of the screen.  I did persevere with a shortish will on maximum zoom, but it is very tedious stitching it all together, and a 12-page will has put me right off even starting!

Meanwhile, this wonderful access to the wills at the NLW will keep me quiet for weeks!

Cheers
Koromo
:)
Census information is Crown copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
____________________________________________________________

Lewis: Llanfair Kilgeddin | Abergavenny | NZ
Stallworthy: Bucks. | Samoa | NZ
Brothers: Nottingham | NZ
Darling: Dunbar | Tahiti
Keat: St Minver | NZ
Bowles: Deal | NZ
Coaney: Bucks.
Jones: Brecon

Offline Gadget

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Re: Welsh Wills Going Online
« Reply #7 on: Saturday 19 September 09 23:51 BST (UK) »
Gadwin Printscreen, converts the <PrtSc> from the clipboard to a jpg image automatically:

http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/

I think it's freeware - it was when I downloaded it  :)


Gadget

Census &  BMD information Crown Copyright www.nationalarchives.gov.uk and GROS - www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

Offline Gadget

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Re: Welsh Wills Going Online
« Reply #8 on: Sunday 20 September 09 01:00 BST (UK) »
Oh wonderful, wonderful - I've now found my Sinah Sandland's father via his will   :D :D :D

William Sandland of Orseddwen (1761) (I knew they lived there)

Now to try and grab it!

and her brother Thomas  - who names his parents as William and Mary and his sister Sinah, wife of John Jones :D

(I'm doing a little jig here)
Census &  BMD information Crown Copyright www.nationalarchives.gov.uk and GROS - www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk