Contents

Setting up the web site, 2003

The aim of the initial project was to make Keith Ludlow’s database available to as wide a user group as possible.

Steps in converting the data

1. The very latest version of Keith’s database was irrecoverable because Keith entered his data into a Fortran program that wrote to a binary file to save on storage. The binary was machine dependent so that it could only be read by a program running on the same machine and operating system. The file was called STKATH.DAT and dated 23/10/1989.
2. Keith also produced Ascii output from his Fortran program, for his cousin Steven Ludlow and we have used the last version of this output, written to a file, STKATH.ASC. The date of my version of this file was 30/6/1996.
3. This file consisted of many columns of names, numbers and places, but the original Fortran code was available so Tony Ludlow deduced the significance of each column from the write-statements.
4. A check was available because Steven Ludlow had written a program in SAS, ‘steve.sas’, to tabulate the same file.
5. Steven used this, or a later version, to produce a tabulation of Keith’s data, written for human eyes, available as a .PDF file at http://www.ludlowname.co.uk.
6. In 2003 Tony Ludlow wrote a program in LPA Prolog, ‘ludlowged.pl’ to map Keith’s file, STKATH.ASC, to a GEDCOM file: ‘ludlow.ged’.
7. ‘ludlowged.pl’ also produced a file ‘gedtest.txt’ which produced output that could be checked to see that the program was working properly.
8. At the same time he wrote a version of the same program, ‘ludlowcsv.pl’, to produce a comma-delimited file of Keith’s data: ‘ludlow.csv’ for use in spreadsheets and databases.
9. The comma-delimited file was used to produce an Excel file, ‘ludlow.xls’.
10. The 2003 pedigree of the Hill Deverill family was produced by reading the GEDCOM version of Keith’s data, ‘ludlow.ged’ into Brother’s keeper and then exporting the descendants of William Ludlow of Hill Deverill (died 1478). The .RTF file was produced in the same way.
11. The 2003 pedigree of the Shipton Moyne family was produced in a similar way, by reading ‘ludlow.ged’ into Brother’s keeper and then exporting the descendants of Stephen Ludlow of Shipton Moyne who lived well before 1500. The .RTF file was produced in the same way.
12. The file, ‘irish.ged’ was produced manually by Tony Ludlow entering data into Brother’s Keeper. The GEDCOM and .RTF files were output of the Brother’s Keeper program.

The web site was set up with all of these files available for scrutiny and checking, see Validation files.

Robin Ludlow’s research

A major revision in 2005

The original GEDCOM file of Keith’s data was unsatisfactory because it put birth date and place in a slot called ‘birth register’ which, in GEDCOM terminology was an ‘EVENT’. This followed Keith’s arrangement of the data but had the disadvantage that if you were looking for a Thomas Ludlow, say, you would get a long list of names with no visible dates of birth, marriage or death. I must have been very tired in 2003 to make such a design blunder.

So, in July 2005, I rewrote the program ‘ludlowged.pl’ to put the date and place of birth in a more sensible place and, where only the date of the birth certificate was known, to use that information as an estimate of the date of birth. Similarly for marriages and deaths.

Steps in converting the data

1. The old version of ‘ludlowged.pl’ was renamed: ‘ludloworiginalged.pl’
2. The old GEDCOM file was renamed: ‘ludloworiginal.ged’
3. The old ‘gedtest.txt’ was renamed: ‘gedtestoriginal.txt’.
4. The remaining original files were left unchanged because they described the original database and not the GEDCOM mapping. These files were: STKATH.ASC, steve.sas, ludlowcsv.pl, ludlow.csv and ludlow.xls.
5. A new version of the Hill Deverill pedigree was created using Legacy instead of Brother’s Keeper to export a subset of Keith’s database. It included everyone who is related by blood or marriage to William of Hill Deverill. Such updates will be common in future (see below).
6. A new version of the Shipton Moyne pedigree was created in the same way.
7. Robin Ludlow’s pedigree of Stokesay Ludlows was entered by hand into Legacy and the resulting GEDCOM file was called shrewsbury.ged. and .HTM files were produced from Legacy
8. The pedigree of Irish Ludlows (my ancestors and the descendants of Thomas Ludlow of co. Cavanq, alive 1789) was updated to mark my mother’s 100th birthday.
9. Since my mother was a Woods, the Woods family history was included, based on work by John and Meril Woods and by David Woods.
10. The Woods family leads back to the Couch family and a well-researched pedigree of the Couch family was supplied by Pauline Mountford (Couch) as a GEDCOM file.
11. In the spirit of the 100th birthday celebrations, my wife’s family history was entered from a chart researched and drawn by her brother, George Atkinson, and this was updated with information from the Censuses of 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901.
12. This flowering of pedigrees has bred a new philosophy for maintaining the databases. The design principle is that changes should be entered only once, that means to only one file. So, in future:
    1. Keith’s database and the GEDCOM file, ‘ludlow.ged’ will remain unchanged.
    2. A copy of that database will be created called ‘keithplus.ged’. This GEDCOM file will be extended to include:
       1. any additional information about sources of data already in Keith’s database (that includes the descendents of William of Hill Deverill and Stephen of Shipton Moyne)
       2. Robin Ludlow’s Stokesay pedigree;
       3. Any additional data that can be firmly linked to names in the KEITHPLUS database. I have in mind the information from Robin Ludlow’s astonishing photocopy survey of entries in published texts, including all the Patent Rolls, Close Rolls etc.

    3. I plan to enter these into my Legacy version of the KEITHPLUS Database which will be the master copy. Versions of the Shrewsbury, Hill Deverill and Shipton Moyne pedigrees will be exported as subsets of KEITHPLUS and released from time to time, perhaps when prompted by enquiries.
    4. A similar file: IRISHPLUS will be created for all my relations and updated regularly. The descendants of particular families can then be exported as subsets of the IRISHPLUS database

13. So, there will be three master files:

    ludlow.ged

    The GEDCOM file of Keith’s original data (never to be changed);

    keithplus.ged

    The GEDCOM file including the additions to Keith’s information;

    irishplus.ged

    The descendants of Thomas Ludlow of co. Cavan and the rapidly spreading web of over 700 individuals related to him by blood and marriage.

Updates of ‘ludlowplus.ged’

1. 10/8/05: The ‘shrewsbury.ged’ file imported into ‘keithplus.ged’ using Legacy with starting number of 4501.
2. 10/8/05: Entered corrections/additions to Hill Deverill families (in keithplus.ged) from Linda D’Silva sent by email on 10/7/04 with additional comments on 29/6/05.
3. 11/8/05 keithplus set up on the website with Keith’s original numbers: 9501 Nicholas de Ludlow; 4500 William Ludlow of Hill Deverill (also 9575); 8800 Stephen Ludlow of Shipton Moyne;
4. 11/8/05 irishplus set up on website with the following individual numbers: 1 Thomas Ludlow of Legoland; 521 James Woods m. Martha; 711 William Couch; 429 George Swanborough Atkinson; 451 Robert John Teire; 455 John Hargreaves;
5. 30/8/05 The grand launch of new design with newly written instructions and links. All sources for future changes to be documented in the GEDCOM files.