To put it bluntly we have made a bit of a mess regarding update to the TKB 6(aj). I queried the wording regarding the dash rather the ? and more or less at the same time introduced a task on the system to have the wording align with the details for UCF. The end result is we now have the confusion mentioned by Richard, I hold my hands up to being party to this confusion. This will be corrected ASAP. To pick on a subsequent point raised by Jeff, there should be no reason why we can't advise Coordinators of changes to the TKB as they occur. Allan Raymond ----- Original Message ----- From: Richard Oliver To: freebmd-syndicates@rootsweb.com Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 8:55 PM Subject: Empty field in Mother's Maiden Surname One of my transcribers has queried how to handle a handwritten 'extra' entry that has a long dash in place of the Mother's Maiden Surname; the scan reference is 1938B3-H-0424. I have advised him to use a ? mark as being the proper UCF symbol for a Field with no content. He has hit back with an item from the Transcriber's Knowledge Base, copied hereunder: _______________________ 6 (aj) I have an entry in which the Mother's name is just a long dash. How do I transcribe it? Transcribe it as a dash (see details of UCF characters). The same applies to other fields but not to the dash in the Surname field of typeset pages which means "repeat the above Surname"; for these you repeat the Surname. _______________________ I have told him that the TKB is wrong in this particular case, and needs correcting. The only field where a dash means "repeat the above Surname" is the first field of any record, that is, the Surname of the person whose BMD record it is. I believe there is no such UCF character as a "dash", only an underscore meaning "single unreadable character". Incidentally, since this was a Late Registration filed in Sep 1942, I have checked scan 1942B3-H-0086 for the typed entry for this record, and the dash is duly typewritten in the MMS column. Richard Oliver Madrid, Spain richol@arrakis.es ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to FREEBMD-SYNDICATES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message