Talk:Prioritized List of Online England County Church Records

To Batsondl and DunnPB

I do really like this new format for a table, and think it is a lot better than the old table on England Church Records. The idea of using different background colours to signify index or index/images is a lot better than having two seperate columns. However shouldn't this be used to replace the old table on England Church Records, rather than making a whole new page and partially duplicating content?

Suggestions

1. I note there are various grammar errors that need fixing, and record collections incorrectly ordered by coverage 2. Having "Most complete coverage", 2nd most, 3rd most etc. implies a very definitive and precise order, which as I have discussed earlier on the England Church Records talk page is not possible. Instead I suggest:

(It would look much better if the two middle columns could be merged just for that row so that the words 'Online Records" are centered.

Putting the offline records at the end is due to the fact that most viewers will not be in England (myself included), especially with the American-centric situation in genealogy and the LDS church. Thus for the vast majority of users offline records are not very useful. And of course this wiki is online, not offline and is more aimed at online researchers

3. Reduce clutter on the table by abbreviating Online Parish Clerks to (OPC), eliminating the dashes before $ signs and have a note at the start of the table saying that all percentages refer to approximate coverages, so that the word "coverage" doesn't need to be repeated over and over again

4. I retreat from my earlier position that FreeReg and (ex)-IGI records should be removed from the table, provided that they are listed in the proper order for each and every county.

5. As discussed on the England Church Records talk page, a row for the RG4-8 non-conformist records should be included.

6. I know this will cause disagreement, but I stand firm to my position that (ex)-IGI records should be differentiated from records on FamilySearch with their own historical record collection. I'm no longer saying they don't belong on the table, just that the hyperlinked text should be "IGI" not "FamilySearch". This will avoid confusion when users find there are no specific historical record collections for Buckinghamshire, Berkshire ... on FamilySearch.

7. I suggest that the hyperlinks for counties with their own historical record collection should be to the wiki pages for those collections.

8. Every record on this table should have a hyperlink. Even offline collections need a link to the website of the society where the records are kept.

When it is the 24th April UTC time, I will make my proposed edit to England Church Records, as my earlier message there stated. --Av85647 (talk) 23:13, 23 April 2018 (UTC)