The Plan
This website serves as the home for a project to produce a digital version of the book entitled "A History of the Haddons of Naseby and their descendants, 1701-1914, together with brief Biographies of Sir Richard Haddon and Dr. Walter Haddon, and some notes about other branches of the Haddon family." It is actually listed on Amazon.co.uk as out of print. I added a photo to the entry because there wasn't one when I first found it.
It was researched and written by a Rev. W.G. Cruft of Naseby, for Walter Haddon, Head of John Haddon & Co. of London. Published in 1915, the book details a branch of the Haddon family originating from Naseby, Northamptonshire. My belief is that one of the principal aims of the book was to find a connection to the aforementioned Sir Richard and Dr. Walter. This, it failed to do, but the book is a rare and fascinating document for me, and my aim is to ensure that the information within be preserved, even if the book itself does not.
I have a copy of this book, and have only recently seen one other copy—on meeting a distant relative for the first time. It would be nice to hear of more copies if they're out there.
Once the digital version is complete, it will be made available at this site for download. The site itself will contain all the info in the book as well, initially—and then the plan is to extend the website to include more up to date info.
Resources
Github Repository
Anyone inclined to do so, and moderately technical, can contribute to the digital book at this github repo. Any other help is welcome.
Images of the book
This is a full zip archive (234.3 MB) of photos I took of the book—its cover and each of the pages in order. The pictures aren't neat, straightened or cropped suitable for any decent reproduction, but they are readable—and would constitute a good resource for anyone who wanted to help out with the digital book.
Free OCR
Free Online OCR has been very helpful in reading much of the text in the images.
http://www.free-ocr.com/
Sigil—ePub editor
This app is a really nice mac/pc app for authoring epub files. It's making the whole process very straighforward.
http://code.google.com/p/sigil/
Feel free to contact me at tony[dot]haddon[at]gmail[dot]com if you want to get in touch about any aspect of the project.