Parliament might, perhaps, be induced to vote an annual grant for so important a work till it was accomplished; albeit, when we think of their niggardly denial of any thing to the printing, or{ 3} even the conservation of the public records, sanguine hopes from that quarter can hardly be indulged.
To insure correctness, without which the scheme would be utterly valueless, I would propose that a certain number of competent transcribers be appointed for each county, either at a given salary, or at a remuneration of so much per entry, to copy the registers of those parishes the ministers of which are unwilling to do it, or feel themselves unequal to the task. The option, however, should always, in the first instance, be given to the minister, as the natural custos of the registers, and as one, from local knowledge, likely to do the work correctly. To each county there should also be appointed one or more competent persons as collators, to correct the errors of the transcribers.
I throw out these rough hints in the hope that some of your correspondents will furnish their ideas on the subject, till we at last arrive at a fully practicable plan of carrying out Mr. Wyatt Edgell's suggestions, and, at all events, obtain transcripts, if not printed copies, of every register in the kingdom.
[1] To obviate the difficulties arising from capricious spelling, I assumed that which I thought to be the correct one, and entered all of the name under that one, placing, however, in parenthesis, the actual mode of spelling adopted in the instance in question, and also entering the name, as actually spelt, in its proper place, with reference to the place where the searcher would find it; e.g. In my register, the name of "Caiser" appears under more than twenty varieties of form. I enter them all under "Cayser". In the _margin_, opposite the first of these entries, I write consecutively the different modes of spelling the name--"Caisar", "Caiser", "Casiar", "Kayser", &c. &c. &c. In the table itself, I write,
Cayser, John. [Casiar] John. [Kaysar] John, &c. &c. &c.
Then, "Casiar", "Kaysar", &c., appear in their respective places _sic_, "Casiar", _v_. "Cayser", "Kaysar", _v_. "Cayser", &c., nearly on the plan adopted by Mr. Duffus Hardy in his admirable indices to the _Close Rolls_.