On 26/08/2013 21:46, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: > In message <kvbcab$etr$1@speranza.aioe.org>, Renia <renia@otenet.gr> > >>> I think I'd disagree there - I would never deliberately throw >>> away information. >> >> No, of course not, but you'd log the quarter in the notes section >> of > > I do, but I log it as "Q2" not "Jun". Same here, as I said earlier. > >> your program along with the district and page number. Surely? > > (Well, by prog. - BK - has a location field, so I put the district in > that, until/unless I have more precise information.) In the location, I put, e.g. Brighton area, Sussex (etc) >>>> quarter references. (And don't let's start on events in >>>> December not registered till the following March.) It's on a >>>> par with the date of >>> >>> Hoised by your own petard there I think - you meant "the >>> following March quarter", but that's not what you wrote (-:. >>> (Apart from where the registration delay was longer than >>> permitted over most of the period we're discussing, a December >>> event couldn't be registered as late as March.) >> >> Oh, yes it could. Events registered late in one quarter are often >> not registered until the next quarter's registers. >> > No, you're not getting what I'm saying: without going beyond the > delay that's allowed, the _registration_ of a December event should > happen _before_ March. Granted, for _our_ purposes, that's not all > that relevant, because the registers are only _indexed_ quarterly. > But the actual _date of the registration_ is supposed to be sooner > than that. Indeed, but it often isn't, especially if the event took place late in the last month of the previous registration. It's also the case that many events weren't actually registered at all. >>> >>>> baptism, which is not the same as a date of birth. There could >>>> be twenty years between the two. >>> >>> Indeed! And baptism registers more often _didn't_ record the DOB >>> than do. (Though sometimes even a curate who usually didn't would >>> do so for an adult baptism, or even one just a few years after >>> birth. But you certainly can't rely on him doing so.) >> >> Comparatively few baptisms register the date of birth. There were >> rules and regulations for these things, and they changed over >> time. > > You're probably right there - in the few cases where I've had to > delve into older free-form registers, you're right, the birth is > rarely mentioned. Most of the baptisms records I've been working with > have been the ones in preprinted books in Medway in the 19th and 20th > centuries. The preprinted books mostly indeed _don't_ have a column > for the birth date, only the baptism date (though a small number > actually do); however, I'd say in about a quarter or a third of the > records I've been looking at, more if the birth is significantly > earlier than the baptism, the curate has written it in, usually in > the left margin. Whether this is a Medway peculiarity, I have no > idea. As I said, different rules for different areas at different times. Late 18th century Yorkshire, for example, for a short period, gives the birth date, baptism date, parents' names, mother's maiden name, and name of grandparents!