S&N Email News: December 2005
Email News Notice:
If you have signed up for our Email News but are not receiving them, check that they are not sent directly to your email spam folder.
We have repeated the content below in case you can't find it:
Get special discounts and the latest information on upgrades and data
Firstly let me wish you a brilliant Christmas with plenty of good cheer from everyone at S&N.
December sees the launch of our new 2006 catalogue which is available free of charge to all our customers. (You can download a copy at http://www.sandn.net/catalogue.php or see the full range and latest discount prices online at www.GenealogySupplies.com).
We have also released complete 1841 and 1851 online transcripts for many counties. The value of our all-inclusive subscriptions is now well over £2,500 and all you pay is the equivalent of £4.66 a month.
In the last few days - Don’t forget our offer, we are giving a London CD set to all those that take a premium subscription as part of our Email News offer.
In this issue:-
* UK Events
* Special Email News Offer
* Massive Census Savings
* What’s New on CD
* What’s New Online
* S&N from back bedroom to genealogy giant
UK EVENTS - December 2005
Come along to these UK events and meet the family behind S&N.
These forthcoming events can save you pounds with our special fair pricing.
************** BRACKNELL FAMILY HISTORY FAIR *******************
* Sunday 29th January, 10am to 5pm. *
* Sports and Leisure Centre Bagshot Rd (A322) *
* Bracknell, RG12 9SE. *
* Entrance £2 *
* www.familyhistoryfairs.com *
****************************************************************
For further details of fairs visit
Special Email News Offer – Free magazine subscription
Get the UK's biggest-selling family history magazine delivered to your door.
Get a FREE six-month subscription to Family Tree Magazine, worth £19.80, with a PERSONAL PREMIUM all-inclusive subscription until the end of January 2006.
To take advantage of this offer, please go to http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/special/ftm and follow the instructions.
Only one free FTM subscription per person; offer open until 31 January 2006 (UK time). Not available in conjunction with any other offer. Overseas customers please note: your magazines will be sent by surface mail and may therefore arrive some time after publication date.
WHAT’S NEW ON CD
You can save even more with these new combined census CD sets that come with finished indexes:
- London 1841 Census PLUS Name-index on CD £ 49.95
- London 1851 Census PLUS Name-index on CD £ 49.95
- London 1861 Census PLUS Name-index on CD £ 49.95
- London 1871 Census PLUS Name-index on CD £ 49.95
- London 1891 Census PLUS Name-index on CD £ 49.95
Other new releases:
- Army List 1904 £ 19.95
- Buckinghamshire, The Visitation of Buckinghamshire 1634 £ 16.95
- Cheshire, The Visitation of Cheshire 1613 £ 16.95
- Clergy List 1852 £ 17.45
- Cumberland 1901 Bulmer’s Directory £ 17.45
- Durham 1841 Census £ 34.95
- Kent, Kelly's 1931 Directory of Bromley; including Bickley,
- Chislehurst, Orpington and District £ 17.45
- Lincs 1851 Census £ 34.95
- London 1931 - Post Office Directory (with County Suburbs) £ 17.45
- London, Pigot's 1839 Directory of London £ 17.45
- Pigot's 1830 Directory - Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire £ 17.45
- Royal Navy at Sea and in Ports Abroad in the 1871 Census £ 24.95
- Royal Navy at Sea and in Ports Abroad in the 1901 Census £ 24.95
- Shropshire, Shrewsbury School Register for 1908 to 1928 £ 17.45
- Suffolk, Kelly's 1912 Directory £ 17.45
WHAT’S NEW ONLINE www.TheGenealogist.co.uk
[15 Dec 2005]
New and updated indexes
Today we added the current state of the indexing project for the Cambridgeshire 1861 indexes.
We also updated the Devon 1861 and Durham 1871 indexes to the current state of the project.
[12 Dec 2005]
New and updated indexes
We have completed the project for the 1851 census for Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and Oxfordshire — indexes and transcripts available.
In the last week we have added the current state of the indexing project for Surrey 1871 and Cumberland 1861 indexes.
The Lancashire and Berkshire 1871 indexes have been updated to include the latest data from the indexing project.
Essex 1851 and Hampshire 1851 transcripts now have linked online images of the original census pages.
[28 Nov 2005]
Eight new indexes added
We have added the current state of the indexing project for the following counties and years:
Dorset 1891, Hampshire 1871, Herefordshire 1871, Kent 1871, Monmouthshire 1891, Northumberland 1891 and Staffordshire 1871 & 1891.
[21 Nov 2005]
1851 Census: Somerset & Hampshire now completed
Somerset and Hampshire 1851 census indexes are now completed and are now also available as transcripts.
This list is just the material added over the last month and represents just a fraction of the material available to our all-inclusive subscribers who pay as little as £4.66 a month.
The total value of included indexes is now £2,806 per annum
S&N – From Dining Table to Genealogy Giant by Nigel Bayley
I started S&N in 1992. In those days no one sold Windows based software or Data CDs. As I needed to import Windows software for my own family history research I thought others could also benefit from being able to get the software in the UK. So S&N Genealogy Supplies was born. The name S&N is simply the initials of my wife and I: Sue and Nigel.
Our first small advert brought so many orders that we had stacks of jiffy bags and software covering the dining room table for a week.
CD was the latest technology and slowly made its way from music to data storage. I thought CDs would be great for distributing family history data, and purchased one of the first CD writers – it was literally the size of a suitcase!
This was the start of our data CD-ROM publishing, putting hundreds of parish records, directories and poll books in a section of the catalogue called British Data Archive.
Family historians at the time needed a fiche and film viewer to be able to view the census. It was believed to be impossible to publish this sort of information on CD-ROM, but I tested various scanners and compression methods and eventually developed a system to publish the census on CD as Acrobat documents.
To see if others were as excited as me by the opportunity to be able to use the census for research on a home computer I talked to Michael Armstrong, the founder of Family Tree Magazine. He encouraged me to develop the idea and wrote an extensive feature on the project in the magazine.
The article created massive interest and advance orders started to pour in. We mortgaged our home and risked everything to buy the equipment, microfiche and film.
In 1999 we needed to set up a limited company to deal with contracts with CD-pressing plants and the PRO, and so S&N British Data Archive Ltd was born.
BDA now has census material available from 1841 to 1901 covering England and Wales.
We were the first to publish the UK census on CD-ROM and have developed techniques to improve the image quality by the use of custom software and specialist equipment.
Although others have followed in our footsteps some have tried to reduce the number of CDs to the detriment of the image quality.
In theory, early county populations should mean smaller sets of CD-ROMs but because the early census records have been written in pencil and the paper is discoloured , they are almost impossible to read if the image is just black and white. We have used greyscale scanning from the more expensive Silver Halide film to ensure better readability. This means that our census sets for London, Lancashire and Yorkshire can contain 40 to 45 CDs but in independent tests they have been found to have 30% more readable pages.
We now employ over forty people and publish over 4,000 genealogy products plus a vast array of online data. The profits are ploughed back into developing new genealogy resources. The current project to fully transcribe the census eats up all of our capital so no flash Ferrari or millions in the bank.
What we do have is high quality data thanks to UK Indexer volunteers and our Online Census team.
My sons have attended the fairs with us, from back when they were small boys, and as the strapping lads they are now. You will often see David and his girlfriend Becky manning the stall and Paul, now six foot six, selling the binders. Mark is now having a go at writing genealogy software as part of his degree course so it looks as we’re all set for the future of the company.
In July 2004 Family History Monthly I was quoted as saying Online data services which explore new ways of using data was the next big thing in genealogy, and feel we have brought this to fruition with TheGenealogist.co.uk
We have invested heavily providing a wide range of online data from Birth, Marriage and Death indexes to Census. We have created new online features such as mapping names from our data sets and feeding the results of one search into another to help verify the person found is the one you want.
Our new all-inclusive subscriptions to TheGenealogist have proved very popular. New data sets are added at no extra cost to subscribers.
The more people that subscribe, the more data we can add -- so please help us to spread the word and increase the available online data. We keep the costs low so All Inclusive subscriptions can cost as little as £4.66 a month.
We now have several sites that provide online indexes from £5, and several specialist genealogy sites:
www.TheGenealogist.co.uk - Genealogy Indexes for Census, Crew lists and other databases
www.BMDindex.co.uk - For Birth Marriage and Death Indexes
www.GenealogySupplies.com - For thousands of genealogy products
www.BritishDataArchive.com - For the census
Ways of spending your Christmas Money
See http://www.genealogysupplies.com/xmas2005.htm
- The Essential Guide to Researching Your Family History DVD £19.95
- Ancestral Trails Book by Mark D Herber - Hardback £30.00, Paperback £20
- Getting the most out of RootsMagic Third Edition by Bruce Buzbee - Paperback £14.95
- RootsMagic 3 Platinum - The leading Genealogy Software £49.95
- Census Name Index CDs, Online Name Index Subscription CDs, Online Transcript Subscription CDs and Online BMD Index Subscription CDs - See below for details
- Luxury A4, A3 and Certificate Binders from £14.95
- UK Census on CD
- Family Tree Designs CD £14.95
- Bronze, Silver and Gold Membership Cards
- Gift Vouchers
Here is a list of our currently most popular products:
- RootsMagic UK Version 3 Platinum Edition £49.95
- RootsMagic UK Version 3 Standard Edition £34.95
- Family Tree Maker 2006 Upgrade CD flatpack £18.95
- Family Tree Maker 2006 Single CD Edition £24.45
- RootsMagic UK Version 3 Upgrade £19.95
- Northumberland 1851 Census - Advance Order £34.95
- National Burials Index Second Edition £45.00
- London 1851 Census £39.95
- Long Archival Certificate Sleeves - Pack of 10 £5.95
- Norfolk 1851 Census - Advance Order £34.95
- Reunion 8.05 for the Mac £74.95
- London 1841 Census Name Index Complete (for those who have the S&N census set and previous index) - Advance Order £14.95
- Long Burgundy Certificate Binder £14.95
- London 1851 Census Name Index Complete (for those who have the S&N census set and previous index) - Advance Order £14.95
- Roots Magic UK Version 3 Platinum Edition £49.95
- Lancashire 1851 Census £49.95
- Worcestershire 1851 Census - Advance Order £34.95
- London 1861 Census £39.95
- London 1841 Census £49.95
- Yorkshire 1851 Census £49.95
- London 1871 Census £39.95
- RootsMagic UK Version 3 Basic Edition £21.95
- Yorkshire 1841 Census £39.95
- Durham 1851 Census - Advance Order £20.03
- London 1901 Census £39.95
- London 1871 Census Name Index v4 Complete (for those who have the S&N census set and previous index) £14.95
- Getting the Most out of RootsMagic - Third Edition - by Bruce Buzbee £14.95
- Family Tree Maker 2005 Deluxe Edition £26.40
- Cheshire 1851 Census £44.95
- London 1891 Census Name Index v6 Complete (for those who have the S&N census set and previous index) £14.95
Email News
Please tell your friends about our email news: they can sign up for a free monthly copy by going to www.GenealogySupplies.com/emailnews
Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Sue and Nigel
====================================
Support UK Genealogy and Buy British
====================================
