I am transcribing 1933D1-B0048, which was typed on a typewriter. In the entry for Barclay, Mavis the age at death is shown as a lower case letter 'o', presumably when numeral '0' was intended. FreeBMD will not accept a non-numerical value. The choice seems to be as follows: 1. Follow TKB 6(ac) and insert an asterisk and follow the entry with - #COMMENT Age shown as lower case letter 'o' 2. Depart from TWYS and use a zero. (Bear in mind that the original typist's mistake may be no more than failure to select the correct case as some typewriters did not have zero and one; you use capital letter 'O' and lower case letter 'l' instead.) Which is correct? My inclination is towards 2 but if 1 is followed, can the search engine cope? Age at death is a searchable field. Cedric Hoptroff ________________________________________________________________________ AOL Email goes Mobile! You can now read your AOL Emails whilst on the move. Sign up for a free AOL Email account with unlimited storage today.

2009/2/3 <[email protected]> > I am transcribing 1933D1-B0048, which was typed on a typewriter. In the > entry for Barclay, Mavis the age at death is shown as a lower case > letter 'o', presumably when numeral '0' was intended. FreeBMD will not > accept a non-numerical value. > > The choice seems to be as follows: > 1. Follow TKB 6(ac) and insert an asterisk and follow the entry with - > #COMMENT Age shown as lower case letter 'o' > 2. Depart from TWYS and use a zero. (Bear in mind that the original > typist's mistake may be no more than failure to select the correct case > as some typewriters did not have zero and one; you use capital letter > 'O' and lower case letter 'l' instead.) You are correct to assume that the most likely error here is that the typist failed to select upper case when typing on a machine that used upper case O as a zero. Given that TWYS places less emphasis on upper/lower case, it is permissible to depart from the exact case of the original, and read it as an upper case O, and transcribe it as 0 -- Dave Mayall

It seems to me that your choices needn't be looked on as alternatives - wouldn't the best course of action be to follow Dave Mayall's advice and insert a zero (your option 2), but also add the comment you describe in your option 1 ? Hope that helps, Mike 2009/2/3 <[email protected]> > I am transcribing 1933D1-B0048, which was typed on a typewriter. In the > entry for Barclay, Mavis the age at death is shown as a lower case > letter 'o', presumably when numeral '0' was intended. FreeBMD will not > accept a non-numerical value. > > The choice seems to be as follows: > 1. Follow TKB 6(ac) and insert an asterisk and follow the entry with - > #COMMENT Age shown as lower case letter 'o' > 2. Depart from TWYS and use a zero. (Bear in mind that the original > typist's mistake may be no more than failure to select the correct case > as some typewriters did not have zero and one; you use capital letter > 'O' and lower case letter 'l' instead.) > > Which is correct? My inclination is towards 2 but if 1 is followed, can > the search engine cope? Age at death is a searchable field. > > Cedric Hoptroff > ________________________________________________________________________ > AOL Email goes Mobile! You can now read your AOL Emails whilst on the > move. Sign up for a free AOL Email account with unlimited storage today. > FreeBMD-Admins mailing list - archive > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/freebmd-admins > FreeBMD http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >