On 24/08/2013 15:29, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: > In message <kv8r25$7jd$1@speranza.aioe.org>, Renia <renia@otenet.gr> > writes: >> On 23/08/2013 23:11, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: > [] >>> Indeed it did - see above. And any newcomer to the hobby should >>> learn fairly soon that something like "Jun 1888 2a 123" is such >>> a reference. My point (in quoting it) was that if, say, the "2a >>> 123" gets separated, what is left is "Jun 1888",, which could >>> easily mislead. >> >> Not if you know what you are doing and learn the discipline of >> genealogy and adapt your database or sheet of paper to allow that a >> reference such as this refers to an event registered in a quarter >> and not the precise > > You're also assuming that anyone via whom the data has passed has > also maintained clearly that it is a quarter. It only takes one link > in the chain to record something as "Jun 1888" rather than "Jun Qtr > 1888" (or _any_ acceptable variation thereon), and everyone who uses > the data after that will at best not know whether it means month or > quarter, at worst assume something that is incorrect (or at least > approx. 2/3 chance of being anyway). It happens all the time. The internet is full of dud data because people don't actually understand how the sources work. >> month of an event. Best to leave it as the year only, without >> mentioning > > 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 your program along with the district and page number. Surely? >> 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. > >> 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.

In message <kvbcab$etr$1@speranza.aioe.org>, Renia <renia@otenet.gr> writes: >On 24/08/2013 15:29, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: [] >> You're also assuming that anyone via whom the data has passed has >> also maintained clearly that it is a quarter. It only takes one link >> in the chain to record something as "Jun 1888" rather than "Jun Qtr >> 1888" (or _any_ acceptable variation thereon), and everyone who uses >> the data after that will at best not know whether it means month or >> quarter, at worst assume something that is incorrect (or at least >> approx. 2/3 chance of being anyway). > >It happens all the time. The internet is full of dud data because people >don't actually understand how the sources work. > Indeed. So I don't promulgate the ambiguous version of quarter identification. > >>> month of an event. Best to leave it as the year only, without >>> mentioning >> >> 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". >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.) > >>> 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. > >> >>> 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. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Who can refute a sneer? - Archdeacon Paley, in his book Moral Philosophy