The Journal Digitisation Project

In 2015 the Executive Committee decided that putting copy of our journals on the website was a good use of our site, and Joan Scrivener (of West 4 printers and a life member of the Society) was able to assist by providing digital copy of our journals back to 2011. The ongoing project is to continue digitising our journals all the way back to when the Society (and the journal) started in 1978. As of January 2021 all journals back to March 1991 have been digitised.

The process involves obtaining hard copy of the journals to be digitised, and then scanning each page, approximately 160 pages per year, to a suitable folder. That's the easy part. The next stage in the process is to use an OCR program to read each of the scanned pages and turn them into text, and to use the text so created to build a journal that looks as much like the original as is reasonable to achieve. While creating the new journal any pictures need to be separately extracted from the original scanned images, and then get pasted (inserted) into the new copy. So it's long-winded and technical, but at the same time very satisfying to see the new journal being rebuilt without much typing. You get to be a total whiz on the Word for Windows options to fit text into the available space, and you get to browse the content as you go along. You definitely need to do a quick proof-read as you will find dates such as 2017 are likely to have been morphed into ZOl7, and much else besides.

If this is the sort of work you fancy then please contact the Projects Co-ordinator.




Society news

Notice Board

The Notice Board was last updated on 28th January 2024.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting is on Thursday 21st March 2024. This will be a hybrid Zoom meeting with the speaker being at St. John's Centre. It's the AGM followed by David Shailes giving a talk on 'Brentford Gas'.

Next Fair

Our next family history fair is the Family History Show - London at Kempton Park Racecourse on Saturday 5th October 2024.


Previous news


Recent updates

9-March-2024

Digitised journals now go back to 1982, all fully indexed.

8-March-2024

The Last Accounts page has been updated to show the Society's signed 2023 accounts.

8-March-2024

The Society's Safeguarding Policy has been updated.

8-March-2024

Committee minutes for January 2024 added to Members Area.

26-February-2024

Digitised journals now go back to 1983, all fully indexed.

16-February-2024

New image (and tip) of the month.

8-January-2024

A brochure advertising the 43rd West London Local History Conference is added to our Sponsored Events page.


Previous updates


© Copyright West Middlesex Family History Society 2007-2020  
A Member of the Federation of Family History Societies. Registered Charity No. 291906