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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Original Burnt Records


doogal

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Good question - I haven't got a clue, but it would be interesting to find out when we can gain access to them.

If they were burnt, how can they be scanned - surely they'd only be singed? :lol:

Les.

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We'll never have access to them. They were in a very fragile state.

The poor old war diaries get a rough enough handling at The National Archive. The burnt docs, if they survive, would not last long. They were both burned and damaged by water from firemen's hoses. Some remain pretty intact but others really are very badly burnt. So, ET, many a true word spoken in jest.

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but it would be interesting to find out when we can gain access to them

I would guess at never - as they've been scanned for use at the NA.

Unless some radical and unforseen preservation technique is invented.

The Burnt Records - weren't they a late 1970's new wave group :lol:

doogal

:) just got your post in before me Paul.

Edited by doogal
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Paul,

I was more wondering if the scanned versions may be online in the future, along the lines of the MICs & diaries. They must have scanned them for some reason other than for storage - which the NA is often saying it hasn't got.

Les.

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As far as I know they were not scanned - they were microfilmed. So no electronic copy. Far sighted, eh?

It is microfilm

if they are on microfilm, couldn't they be captured to disk in a similar fashion to the film capture process?

A bespoke machine would be expensive in the first instance, but once you got the film spinning, I'd say it would take a year at the most.

doogal

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In 2004 the NA moved all their little used documents, including those remaining at Hayes to an underground storage facility in a converted salt mine in Winsford, Cheshire. You can still request documents stored there [if they are fit to travel] and they guarantee to produce them withing 3 working days.

So presumably the burnt records are also down the salt mine but, of course, their travelling days are over. A Google search using a strange combination of 'National Archives,' 'salt mine' and 'Cheshire' will even produce pictures!

Sue

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Very relieved to see that it's safe from fire ^_^

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  • 5 months later...

Just imagin what could have been! without the fire millions of documents in pristine order all available at the click of a button.

Absolute researchers paradise!!!!

what could we of done......

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