Liam, I lived just up the road from Woburn, dated in Revere, and married in Winthrop, - all Massachussetts. I too, had to ponder a bit to decipher the posting (let my imagination soar ...). Perhaps we all need to go back to the practice of spelling out everything lest we appear as cryptic as the records we struggle to decipher. I can imagine my great granddaughter searching these archives and I'd like her to understand my contributions. Ernie Nashua, New Hampshire, USA ----------------------------------- > > > Subject: Genealogy and Jargon > Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 11:06:16 +0100 > From: "L.Martin" <L.Martin@zen.co.uk> > To: DONEGALEIRE-L@rootsweb.com > > One of the problems associated with most serious subjects is that the > individuals engaged in its study construct a special vocabulary and set of > procedures to describe what they are doing. This has some advantages among > specialists in that they understand one another's activities. However it > does create a problem for newcomers who are trying to penetrate the thicket > surrounding the speciality and who probably think that it is a barrier > constructed by practitioners in order to keep the natives out. The > difficulty in genealogy is compounded by practitioners in different > countries circling the wagons in entirely different ways.