Since joining Oxfordshire Family History Society, I have become very involved in transcribing Monumental Inscriptions from local churchyards. Traditionally these are produced as typed, paper transcripts and duplicated for sale as microfiche.

Since 2001 I have pioneered a method of producing MI transcripts in the form of an Illustrated, Interactive CDROM complete with Plans, an Index and Photographs of every grave. This web page is intended to publicise this work and to encourage other people to use the same techniques for their own local churchyards.

Why Produce a CD?

• These days, more people have Computers than have Microfiche Readers.
• CDs are easily and cheaply duplicated in small quantities.
• Digital Photography allows Pictures of every grave to be included on a CD.
• With the right format (HTML), CDs should not become obsolete too soon.
• With appropriate automation, CDs should take very little extra effort to produce.

Take a Look at an Example

Bear in mind that on the real CD, everything loads near-instantaneously, whereas you are going to have to wait whilst things download from the web.

The example pages here include part of the Index, an Overall Plan, a small part of the detailed plan for Area N and the Transcript Page, for just one headstone. Click on any of these links to view them.

This headstone commemorates William and Jane Eeley (who just happen to be my wife's great great grandparents)!

On the real CD, clicking the photograph would produce a full page image of the headstone. This is omitted here to keep the image file size small for downloading from the web.

On the real CD, clicking the Prev. and Next links would take you to the adjacent graves, N12 and N14. Here they will just bring you back to this page, as will the Main Menu link on the Plan and Index pages.

Want to know more?

All the automation routines I have prepared are available as freeware and I am happy to offer advice and encouragement by email. Contact me if you are interested.

As you will see from the manual, I provide a skeleton to get people started. This includes the automation software I have written, together with some example data to practice on. This too is available on the download page. If you are seriously intending to produce your own CD it would be a good idea to purchase one of the more recent MI transcript CDs from Oxfordshire Family History Society These provide a complete example of how everything fits together and they too contain a complete copy of the skeleton. Prices and ordering details for CDs currently available, are on the society's web site at www.ofhs.org.uk and may be viewed by following the link to "Transcripts and Indexes on CD-ROM".

We deliberately keep the prices of the CDs as low as possible, so buying a complete transcript will not break the bank!

The Revision History page on this web site will give you the most up to date information on which parishes are available and which version of the skeleton they use. The latest version will always be available here on this web site.