[WillowTheWhisp]

The second one about outsourcing the records is a bit iffy. I worked on the "1881 project" which involved the 1881 census. We were taking the original handwritten records and transferring them all to computer where they were indexed and then released on microfiche in a typewritten form along with the indexes.

It was a long involved process and deciphering the old handwriting was quite a challenge as anyone who has done genealogy will understand. Not to mention the ink blots and the moth eaten pages or the bits of mold and damp. None of it was ever simply left up to one person though. It was independantly checked and re-checked. The point being that what one person sees under a blob may differ from what another person sees. In the end if it couldn't be agreed upon a note had to be made to refer people to the original record for their own confirmation.

If I found it difficult as an English person to read English names written by English people in English handwriting how much more difficult is it going to be for an Indian person to do it? I wouldn't like to try to do the same with old Indian records written in Hindi or whatever. This isn't being racist. This is being logical. I can forsee a lot of mistakes being made.

Mistakes already exist in a lot of original records and it's a challenge deciphering them sometimes. For instance I have an ancestor whose name was Porter (Chrsitian name) and he was a milliner. (In those days the enumerator himself used to do the writing as many people couldn't read and write) On the census they have him down as Peter and occupation porter! Don't assume that official records like the births marriages and deaths will be easier to read than a census because some of them are absolutely horrendous and a lot of page corners are the worst where people have handled them and smudged the ink or damaged the paper so much that it becomes almost illegible.