This is the 2015 version of this material on the Internet, the first version having been online since 1998. The contents of Dr. McLean's book remain the same, but improvements have been made to the online access, taking advantage of the better Internet browsers now available.

The page-images from scanning the book are measured in pels (picture elements or "dots") of width and height. All the page-images are 1200 pels wide, except for the maps. The page images are first displayed half-size, 600 pels wide, for older personal computer screens. Clicking on the navigation-bar link "HiRes" (see below) will display the full page image for reading or printing.

Current Internet browsers are able to resize displayed images over a wide range. For example, the Windows Internet Explorer 11® provides two commands for adjusting size:

• View/text-size (5 levels)
• View/Zoom (75% to 400%)

The following two steps are suggested:

1. The navigation-bar (see below) is intended to be a single line. It is suggested that first the View/text-size command be increased until a navigation-bar wraps to a second line, then the command reduced one level.
   
   
2. Then the View/Zoom command can be adjusted for comfortable viewing. Both the page-image and the surrounding text will be resized together.

The original hardbound book is presented in its entirety, including notation of blank pages, as a succession of page images with the following exceptions. The Contents page and three indexes are made available in the HTML language of the Internet to provide rapid access to the page images. The three indexes are:

• Index.  The conventional all-name index from the back of the book.
  
  
• Index to the Introduction.  The Introduction is a collection of records preceeding the authorization of the Robertson Colony. The Introduction consists of 46 pages, including an index which has been rendered in HTML.
  
  
• Index to the Pages.  An index to the main collection of documents, by date, with a descriptive sentence or two.

Here are some details on how to move around within the online volume. At the top and bottom of each page you will see a navigation bar with the following clickable links:

• Go to Page  Takes you to tables of page numbers for going directly to a page if you know the page number.
  
  
• Footnotes  If referenced footnotes are on the page being viewed, then this link is not present. If referenced footnotes are on a later page, this link will appear to take you there. Return by clicking on your browser's Back button.
  
  
• Cont.  Takes you to the volume's Contents page.
  
  
• Index  Takes you to a choice of the first letter of the name in which you are interested, then to that section of the all-name Index.
  
  
• Papers  Takes you to the Index to the Papers.
  
  
• Biblio.  Takes you to the Bibliography.
  
  
• HiRes  Displays the higher-resolution, original scan of the page. This larger image can then be printed by the browser or copied and pasted into a graphics program (e.g., Windows Paint) for printing.
  
  
• Page-  Moves backward by one page number.
  
  
• Page+  Moves forward by one page number.
  
  

This section documents some technical details of the design of this online Volume.

Scanning.  Dr. McLean had an unbound copy of the book, which made it much easier to get straight page-images. The book was first photocopied at 90% size (so that line length + small white border = 6"). The copies were darkened as much as possible so that the toner would thicken the lines of the characters, without darkening the white background. These copies were then scanned at 200 dpi, 256-level grayscale and saved temporarily as uncompressed .TIF files. A graphics program was used to reduce the 256-levels to 4, thereby reducing the size of the images.

HTML. The objective was to use HTML Level 3.2, but just its simplest commands. The hope was and is that Internet browsers will continue to support this oldest standard HTML. Otherwise, millions of still-viable web pages of historical and genealogical material will become unavailable. Also, HTML 3.2 must be the smallest part of modern browsers, and not a burden to keep.

The HTML Validation Service of The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was used to proof these online pages.

A small conceit: The HTML 3.2-illegal attributes, HR color="maroon" and TABLE bordercolor="maroon," were used to brighten otherwise drab black and white pages. There has not been a problem in 17 years. The original Internet browsers supported the "illegal" attributes. Browers that do not, simply skip such attributes.

This online version has been prepared by John Robertson McLean and myself.

H. David Maxey
2015