Database updates: an important notice

The LBS Database

Since its inception, we have continuously updated the LBS database, adding new material each day from our own work and from the contributions of hundreds of family and local historians. As we have added the material it has appeared directly on this website.

In future, we will be moving to a new model, in which we will stabilize the database and release new information publicly in a formal series of updates. We are making this change because as the project matures it has become clear to us that researchers need the ability to specify which version of the database has been used to generate a given set of results from interrogating it. Academic scholars in particular need to be able to cite the database in references that would allow other researchers to replicate the results. The LBS team itself also intends for a period to spend more time on analysis and dissemination of results and less on the accumulation of new raw information. A continuously evolving database militates against both of these.

As of 31st December 2018, therefore, we will freeze the public database in its then state, as the LBS Database 2018. Our aim subsequently is to issue updates each year, usually in the January following each effective cut-off date, so that in January 2020 for example we will release LBS Database 2019, together with a commentary on the major additions made in the course of the year to 31st December 2019.

We have greatly benefited from the generosity of many individuals in contributing information to us, and we want both to maintain our existing relationships with contributors and to add new ones. We will continue to incorporate these contributions into our work, but contributors will not see the results immediately in the public database: they will instead form part of the annual updates. At the same time, as we turn to place more emphasis on our own work of analysis and on the dissemination of results, it is likely that our response-time to contributors will increase and the extent to which we can enter into detailed exchanges might diminish. We greatly appreciate the patience and understanding of our community of users and contributors as we implement these changes.