Saving money on MIC lookups?

[heppers]

Whilst researching my great grandfathers war history it has occured to me to look into if two of his brothers were in the great war to. He was 40 when the war broke out and he had two brothers that were 45 and 44 at the time.

There are possible "hits" for them in searches on the national archive site but all those £3.50s soon add up.

My question is therefore this - the file WO 372/9 that we pay £3.50 to look at six records at a time - can that be looked at somewhere (presume Kew) on a microfiche say - much in the same way that you pay to look at Birth Marriage and Death registers online but can look at the big books at the family records centre.

If so they I may compile a list of possibles to look at and save them up for when I end up at Kew.

This is all part of a bigger project of mine to find out as much as I can about my great great grandfather and my attempts to trace all his 15 children and their descendants.

[Stebie9173]

At Kew you access the MICs in exactly the same way as online, but it omits the Payment bit!

You can also look at them on Microfilm - they are stored in alphabetical order. Can be worth a look just in case some got missed when being digitised.

Steve.

[John_Hartley]

Steve

When you access them online at Kew, can you use the "internet cafe" on the ground floor as well as the computers on the first floor.

Reason for asking is that I have a vague recollection of someone posting that they used the cafe machines to download them and them email them to their usual email address to look at later. If memory is correct, presumbaly one needs to set up a secondary email address (such as hotmail) to send to one's normal address?

John

[heppers]

Steve

When you access them online at Kew, can you use the "internet cafe" on the ground floor as well as the computers on the first floor.

Reason for asking is that I have a vague recollection of someone posting that they used the cafe machines to download them and them email them to their usual email address to look at later. If memory is correct, presumbaly one needs to set up a secondary email address (such as hotmail) to send to one's normal address?

John

That would be a good idea as it would save having to transcribe lots of info.

You would need a web based email address like hotmail. Gmail from google is good to as you get 2 gig of space so you could just email them to yourself and store them there til later - I do that quite a lot, it's like have a computer disk that is just there, you don't have to remove it or carry it around.

[shinglma]

John

I don't think that you can do that anymore. I seem to recall trying some time back and discovered that the documents would no longer attach to e-mails.

Regards

Mike S

[Stebie9173]

Cough*Copy*Cough*PDF*Cough*URL*Cough*

Steve.

[John_Hartley]

Steve

If I've understood correctly, I could sit in the caff, logged on to my email and, erm, cough. Yes?

J

[Stebie9173]

John, John, John....

You sit at a terminal (pick a terminal, any terminal) and go through the Documents Online procedure to Download your PDF onto screen and write down the full URL of the PDF file that you can see on the blue bar at the top of the screen (Where it says Saving Money on MIC lookups? - Great War Forum - Microsoft Internet Explorer" on this screen. Well, my screen, anyway)

Only three different bits actually vary - it includes the Series number, the piece number and a download reference. If you are doing Docs Online War Diaries then you can just write down the latter two numbers.

Then you go home....

Have a cup of coffee....*

And sit at your PC at home. Cross your fingers. And type in the full URL into the URL address bar on your IE, etc.

Hit return

Voila, one MIC/War Diary/etc. PDF.

Save as.

Peruse War Diary, MIC, etc. at your leisure.

Steve.

P.S. Whether this is entirely how the NA want it to work is another question, but it does. At the moment.

*Optional.

[John_Hartley]

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know about writing stuff down. Even a techno-thicko like wot I am knows about writing stuff down. I was trying to save myself the graft by "cut N pasting" one to another. Not that I would be trying to circumvent the NA trying to gain income from me. Innit.

John

[shinglma]

Steve

I thought that loophole had been blocked as well?

Regards

Mike

[Stebie9173]

It worked for me in late April when I last went, and before that in March.

YMMV.

Steve.

[tracy21020]

If you just want a simple option like me you can print out the sheet with 6 MIC's for 20p! A big difference from £3.50!

In the first room you go in to up the stairs you will see computer screens on high tables with a keyboard and card swipe. Swipe your card and go into Documents Online in the normal way and carry on as though you are going to buy it. Instead of a payment screen it will take you to the print option. You put in your name in so when you go the printer you know what is yours. You can do as many as you want then go the printer in the middle of the room. There is a touch screen so you pick what is yours and put money into a slot. Remember to take some change with you.

Hope this helps

Tracy