To: (DERBYSGEN-L@rootsweb.com)
From: John Palmer (john.palmer@wirksworth.org.uk)
Subject: New Wirksworth website
8 Dec 2000
Hello Folks,
The old Wirksworth website has been revamped and replaced by
a new website at the same URL as before:
www.wirksworth.org.uk
The necessity of change had become obvious from experience gained
in running the site since July 1998. Here are the changes:
1. The Parish Registers are now complete from 1608-1899 and all to be
found in one place. There are 88,000 entries. The format of each
entry has been compressed to deal with the extra info shown,
especially after 1813.
2. The PR Index shows all 6,200 surnames, each of which is
ht-linked to a phonex-group of entries. Group code numbers have
been changed to cope with increased surnames, but users will
not be conscious of the codes because of the ht-linking. Each
group heading shows all surname variants in that group, many users
do not realise the variation in spelling before 1800.
[ht-links=Hypertext Links, what makes HTML special - without them
it would just be another display system]
3. Each Census index is now completely ht-linked by name and place to
the Census listing. For 1841, 1851 and 1881 listings, this involved
over 50,000 ht-links. Use of the Census is now much speeded up. I
doubt ht-linking on a similar scale will be found elsewhere
because of the difficulty in preparing the .htm files.
4. Indexes of Census Addresses and Occupations have been added, the
former fully ht-linked to the listing. Many addresses were used
in the PRs, but could not be located without the 1851 Census.
5. The website has been "squashed" from 903 to 520 files, but has grown
from 25 Mb to 27 Mb in size. Every file has a clear ht-link back to
the frontpage, to help users who enter the site "through the
backdoor", and so miss instructions. Search engines don't
distinguish between front and back doors.
6. Each file has been re-formatted, with a bolder and tidier layout.
7. The menu has a new layout, in order of importance of its 42
sections. Background colours help. The "kipper" layout of the
frontpage has been retained, because of ease of adding new
sections.
8. The frontpage contains a clear definition of the area covered by the
records ("40 square miles around Wirksworth Town"). This is aimed at
users who think the website covers all Derbyshire.
9. Small text changes have been made in several places.
10. The normal maximum file size has been increased from 60k to 70k, as
no user complaint has ever been received about down-loading time,
and most people now have 56k modems.
11. Most files now have a copyright statement, on legal advice.
12. The "Big Index" (a site-wide index) has been removed, because of
time-consuming maintenance and Mb saving. Each of the present 22
databases still has its own index.
13. All changed links to other websites have been updated, its
astonishing how many websites do change their addresses. The
excellent Google was used to quickly find the new addresses
14. A dedication has been included to my mother, who started the whole
damn thing.
FUTURE PROJECTS
It is expected that 1861, 1871 and 1891 Census will be deciphered,
transcribed, compiled, indexed, formatted and added to the
website over the next 18 months.
Best wishes,
John Palmer, Dorset, England
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