3 December 2004

1. Update of Cataloguing Projects

1.1 ADM 29 (Admiralty: Officers' and Ratings' Service Records (Series II)). 67 out of 96 pieces had been completed.

1.2 ADM 139 (Admiralty: Continuous Service Engagement Books). 12 out of 20 pieces had been completed.

1.3 'Travel to the UK' Project: BT 26 (Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and successors: Inwards Passenger Lists). 121 pieces had been completed. This had featured in the 'HLF Breakfast' display.

1.4 BT 372 (Board of Trade: Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen: Central Register of Seamen: Seamen's Records ('Pouches')). It was hoped that this would go forward.

1.5 BT 390 (Ministry of War Transport: Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen: Merchant Seamen who served on Royal Navy ships under the T124X and T124T agreements: Records) and
BT 391 (Ministry of War Transport: Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen: Merchant Seamen, Special Operations Records) It had been agreed that work on these should be postponed until the next financial year due to staff shortages in the Contact Centre.

1.6 C 4 (Court of Chancery: Six Clerks Office: Answers etc, before 1660). The target of 12 boxes had been met.

1.7 C 13 (Court of Chancery: Six Clerks Office: Pleadings 1800-1842). Stage 1: 515 out of 584 pieces had been completed.Stage 2: 3,000 out of 10,000 pieces had been completed.

1.8 C 14 (Court of Chancery: Clerks of Records and Writs Office: Pleadings 1842-1852). Of the next target of 7 years, 3 had been completed.

1.9 CAB 65 (War Cabinet and Cabinet: Minutes (WM and CM Series)) 37 pieces/edit sets out of 57 were complete.
CAB 66 (War Cabinet and Cabinet: Memoranda (WP and CP Series)). 67 pieces/edit sets were complete. Target complete.

1.10 CAB Supplementary Finding Aids. These were all marked up. An e-mail was awaited from the keying company to confirm they could key the pages.

1.11 CO 'Your Caribbean Heritage' Project. (HLF funded project to catalogue CO Caribbean correspondence pre-1926: year 1 of 3 years.) 78 pieces had been drafted. Concentration on outreach in the last few months had slowed down cataloguing.

1.12 CP 52. (Court of Common Pleas: Brevia Files.) Files for the first two years of Edward III, out of his first ten, had been drafted.

1.13 E 179 (Exchequer: King's Remembrancer: Particulars of Account and other records relating to Lay and Clerical Taxation) into the Catalogue. Four of this year's five counties had been completed.

1.14 E 179 Wales. 12 out of 13 counties had been completed.

1.15 E 179 Clerical subsidies pilot project. The bid had been submitted.

1.16 E 179 Devon. (Friends of TNA grant). Nothing had been done yet, as an editor would not be available full-time until Spring 2005.

1.17 FO 383 (Foreign Office: Prisoners of War and Aliens Department: General Correspondence from 1906). 443 of 547 pieces had been completed (81%).

1.18 HO 1/HO 144 Citizenship/Naturalisation Project. (A project creating indexes to case papers by individual). All was complete with the exception of:
Years 1931-1934. This edit set (over 6,000 entries) would be ready for upload by the end of December
The team was currently 50% through a list of 550 missing files. These were usually files where the file number had been miskeyed in the index or in the Catalogue.
Denizations: HO 1/1-12. All were now on the Catalogue.
Naturalisations by Act of Parliament: HO 1/13-16. These were currently being worked on.

1.19 HO 17(Home Office: Criminal Petitions, Series I). 5 pieces had been drafted to Word.

1.20 HO 47. (Home Office, Judges' Reports on Criminals.) 10 pieces had been drafted in Word and 7 of those had been edit checked. A further 6 pieces were in draft.

1.21 HO 73 (Home Office: Various Commissions: Records and Correspondence). (A two-year project.) 1 piece out of 6 had been foliated and reboxed.

1.22 MH 12. (Local Government Board and predecessors: Correspondence with Poor Law Unions and Other Local Authorities). 1 piece out of 9 had been completed by an editor. Edit checking had begun.

1.23 MH 27 (Poor Law Board and Local Government Board: Poor Law Administration Department and Metropolitan Department: Poor Law School Districts and London School Board, Correspondence). 7 pieces out of 10 had been drafted to Word.

1.24 PL 6 (Palatinate of Lancaster: Chancery Court: Pleadings, Bills). PL 6/1 item listing was on the Catalogue. Item details for PL 6/19-PL 6/46 (1651-1699, approximately 5300 cases) had been received from volunteers at Lancaster University and Lancashire Record Office. The data was being checked before it was decided what was the best way to get this into the Catalogue.

1.25 Place-names project. The totals of enhanced place-name authority file records had been increased as follows:
UK: 131
Africa: 166
World (non-UK, non-Africa): 792

1.26 SC 8. (Special Collections: Ancient Petitions.) 4,000 out of 6,000 pieces had been completed.

1.27 SP 87 (Secretaries of State: State Papers Foreign, Military Expeditions). 7 out of 10 pieces had been completed.

1.28 STAC 10 (Star Chamber Miscellanea). The STAC 10 edit sets that had been started as projects over the years were being tidied up. The item listing of STAC 10/1 should be sent to the editing stage by the end of the week.

1.29 WO 166, 169, 170, 171 and 172 (Second World War unit war diaries). Amending infantry and cavalry unit titles. Of 450 to amend, 433 had been done.

1.30 WO 363 (War Office: Soldiers' Documents, First World War 'Burnt Documents' (Microfilm Copies). This was ongoing.

1.31 WO 373 (War Office and Ministry of Defence: Military Secretary's Department: Recommendations for Honours and Awards for Gallant and Distinguished Service (Army)). Progress was being made on this.

2. Cataloguing Project Proposals for 2005-2006

Subject to further information being provided in a couple of cases, the Cataloguing Board gave its approval in principle to work on the following projects involving the following series:
(1) C 11: Six Clerks Office: Pleadings, 1714-1758.
(2) C 15: Clerk of Records and Writs Office: Pleadings, 1853-1860.
(3) CAB 148: Defence and Overseas Policy Committees 1964-1974.
(4) CO 323: Original Correspondence 1689-1925 (this project to cover 1856-1925).
(5) FO card index system 1906-1913
(6) HO correspondence series 18th-20th centuries
(7) IR Valuation Office record plans: (IR 121 and IR 124/1 to IR 134/9).
(8) MH 12: (section for Manchester Poor Law Union records 1834-1872).
(9) MT 6: Railway Correspondence 1840-1966.
(10) REQ 2: Court of Requests: Pleadings, 1492-1642.
(11) Retrospective Map Conversion Project
(12) WO 74: Army Purchase Commission (records for 1871-1891).
(13) WO 208: Military Intelligence, 1917-1974.