WilliamRev Posted 8 March , 2019 Share Posted 8 March , 2019 (edited) For my MA dissertation a year ago I downloaded 40 war diaries from the National Archives at £3.50 per diary, which was fine at the time. But for my forthcoming PhD I need to access several hundred war diaries. I have a subscription to Ancestry, but have only been able to download diaries page by page, and that is when I can find them (the indexing seems bizarre) so I am looking for a more effective solution. It seems to me that my best bet is to part with £350 for the Naval and Military Press CD-ROM of war diaries. Looking through the forum, I find lots of posts from 2014, mostly saying that the product is good but with flaws. There is nothing more recent on the forum. So, in 2019, is this CD-ROM worth the money, or is there a better way to access war diaries? Any and all opinions welcome! Thanks, William Edited 8 March , 2019 by WilliamRev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaureenE Posted 8 March , 2019 Share Posted 8 March , 2019 A reminder that a few transcribed war diaries for the Western Front (more for Gallipoli) have been produced by a former GWF member, and are available from Amazon as Kindle downloads, (with free Kindle app), No handwriting puzzles to solve! https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Diaries+Adjutant+Gillott&ref=nb_sb_noss Cheers Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skipman Posted 8 March , 2019 Share Posted 8 March , 2019 The N & MP diaries were available on a website (not sure if still active) worth checking this method. Click Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Bach y Sowldiwr Posted 8 March , 2019 Share Posted 8 March , 2019 You can access and download any digitised diary free at Kew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tootrock Posted 8 March , 2019 Share Posted 8 March , 2019 N & MP diaries mentioned above are still acccessible, but with a subscription. One year £ 95. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilliamRev Posted 8 March , 2019 Author Share Posted 8 March , 2019 Many thanks for these thoughts and suggestions, all of which I will consider. Can anyone with the CD-ROM of war diaries say how happy they are with it; do you wish you had paid the £95 (or whatever) per year instead? William Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilliamRev Posted 10 March , 2019 Author Share Posted 10 March , 2019 The war diaries at Naval and Military Archives (at £10 per day, or £95 per year etc.) are nicely catalogued, but it seems as though you have to download the diaries one page at a time - the one I am currently looking for is 450 pages long, and that is going to take me most of a day. Or am I wrong? Can one download a whole war diary at once without having to resort to paying £3.50 from The National Archives? This is what I need to do. (Dai, thanks for the suggestion of me visiting Kew in person to download them for free, but this is not currently practical for me). As before, all thoughts are welcome. Many thanks! William Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skipman Posted 10 March , 2019 Share Posted 10 March , 2019 (edited) I am not sure if DownThemAll a Firefox extension will work for that site. A few years ago, I used it to successfully download complete Canadian War Diaries. It would not work for the 'ancestry' diaries but worth trying the N & MP version. It might be worth contacting them to ask them if it's possible, or if any other method can be achieved? Mike Edited 10 March , 2019 by Skipman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilliamRev Posted 7 April , 2019 Author Share Posted 7 April , 2019 (edited) Thanks Mike, I have tried DownThemAll, and it no longer works, but thanks for the suggestion. I'm back to thinking that I am going to have to part with £350 for the Naval and Military Press CD-ROM ,as the best way to download complete war diaries, rather than page by page. But suggestions are still welcome... William Edited 7 April , 2019 by WilliamRev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skipman Posted 7 April , 2019 Share Posted 7 April , 2019 There's also Multithreadad Download Manager and no doubt other download managers that might be worth trying. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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