Hello Paul,

Thank you for your response. Regarding your comment "if everything was freely available, then people might not want to join the Society", Brian had considered this point. When he gave his free databases to the IOMFHS his main aim was to assist and promote the FHS as well as to help all IOM researchers. To encourage non-members to join the FHS he asked for a members-only section - accessible by password - to make membership more valuable to online users.

We were told that a members-only section could be created on the FHS site, and Brian planned to send his complete IOM census transcripts 1841-1901 as soon as he was given a directory in the Members area similar to the one on the Research Page where he was putting his other databases.
He would have sent them for the members-only section on the old FHS link at isle-of-man.com had he not been assured that the "new" IOMFHS website would create this section, and he then waited for it to be made available to him.

There are other items which could go in a members-only area, such as FHS Journals, perhaps after a 3-month period from publication, which would make names/places in older issues much easier to find.

Sue