Sue, At the risk of inflaming an already hot topic, I omitted to mention that the Obed. and Eliza. examples from my earlier email are actually from a marriage index, and co-incidentally from the same page as each other. >I could agree with the theory of a full stop showing an abbreviated name if >it wasn't for the following: > >1) They are only found on Death records not on Births or Marriages <SNIP> The point I was trying to make was not that they are abbreviations, but that we cannot know from the index alone whether they are abbreviated names or full names. The Obed. example, which is the first one I spotted, is on a particularly clear part of a print-out from a microfilm, and the 'missing alignment dots', if that is what they are, are not part of a stripe of damage down the film. The corresponding characters in the several rows above and below are present and easy to read. The following line is Ohed. with all the other data being identical, which suggests that the handwritten index was difficult to read when it was transcribed and the typeset version produced. >The only instances we've seen (so far) where this theory could be correct is >after Eliza and Obed - which could be a shortened form but are also names in >their own right Quite right. My point is that there is ambiguity here, not that they ARE abbreviations. Also, a search engine supporting wildcards, like already exists on the FreeBMD site (or name aliasing or some other matching technique) would easily find these two example cases. Mary Trevan

I have a sneaking suspicion we're at cross purposes with this. Those of us who don't want to include the full stops are talking about pages where every single record has a full stop at the end of the Forenames and it's always followed by a blank space. The alignment dots don't start until after whatever is the next field. I don't have a problem with those pages which only include a full stop after a few Forenames. I'll agree it's used as an abbreviation then. I just had a look at the scan page for some examples. After 1883 all the Death records had the full stop and space as described above. I don't think that can be called a small sub-set. I also had a look at Garry's pages of 1868 Marriages and again there's a full stop and a space. The alignment dots don't start until after the District name. So, it would seem these 'problem' pages are quite easy to identify. They all have full stops on every record after the forenames and then spaces. I suspect the problem has only just arisen as very few Syndicates are, as yet, working on such pages. No doubt more will be in the future!! Sue E Sussex, UK My Family Tree Website is at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~sadovaston ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary Trevan" <[email protected]> To: "Sue Burton" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: 28 October 2001 17:42 PM Subject: Re: Fullstop - Obed. was from a marriage index > Sue, > > At the risk of inflaming an already hot topic, I omitted to mention that the > Obed. and Eliza. examples from my earlier email are actually from a marriage > index, and co-incidentally from the same page as each other. > > >I could agree with the theory of a full stop showing an abbreviated name if > >it wasn't for the following: > > > >1) They are only found on Death records not on Births or Marriages > <SNIP> > > The point I was trying to make was not that they are abbreviations, but that > we cannot know from the index alone whether they are abbreviated names or > full names. > > The Obed. example, which is the first one I spotted, is on a particularly > clear part of a print-out from a microfilm, and the 'missing alignment > dots', if that is what they are, are not part of a stripe of damage down the > film. The corresponding characters in the several rows above and below are > present and easy to read. The following line is Ohed. with all the other > data being identical, which suggests that the handwritten index was > difficult to read when it was transcribed and the typeset version produced. > > >The only instances we've seen (so far) where this theory could be correct > is > >after Eliza and Obed - which could be a shortened form but are also names > in > >their own right > Quite right. My point is that there is ambiguity here, not that they ARE > abbreviations. Also, a search engine supporting wildcards, like already > exists on the FreeBMD site (or name aliasing or some other matching > technique) would easily find these two example cases. > > Mary Trevan > >