i think you are just the person ime looking for,do you live localish.
mack 
I've PM'd you. There are a couple of issues with the idea, one of which is technical & so I won't bore the entire forum membership. The non-technical issue is the one I raised originally, ie: there may be copyright issues. Doubtless some people here have used
www.freebmd.org.uk and its associate projects but perhaps most remain oblivious to the copyright constraints regarding the data on those sites. In the case of the
www.freereg.org.uk project the constraints are likely seriously to impair the intended purpose, although of course anything is better than nowt. I'm not involved with the freebmd etc projects but I've a pretty good idea of how they're doing it and, in any event, this is much simpler from both the IT and the logistical point of view.
I'm not a lawyer but permission may be required. If there are no lawyers here then I think a chat with a Returning Officer is probably not a bad idea. And it may be that written consent would be required from every Returning Officer responsible for the areas which once were covered by (probably) far fewer ROs than nowadays (boundary changes etc). I'm deaf, so can't phone people ... but I can write a mean letter in legalese & perhaps use the Cambridge Uni old boy network if this becomes an issue. As a minimum they are going to insist on free access to all, but that is not an issue & it is the extremities of their potential views that worry me. In particular, public officers in charge of such historical data are becoming increasingly aware that they can raise funds by charging people & planning to implement an official or franchised online system etc.
I would advise that the database itself is the easy bit cf the legals. Transcription is a pain and I think as a project it wold be as well to insist that there is a verification process of some sort (double checking by another person prior to any entry being uploaded, at least, since typos are NOT the computer's fault). But, then, I've never actually seen an AVL & rather get the impression that Mack may have already done much of this; and turned his fingers into stumps as a consequence
BTW, Mack, my deafness is not so bad that I need to sign, although I do know the obvious sign terminology (as do we all, and I foresee some of it being used in my direction!)
