On Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:01:47 +0200, "Lesley Robertson" <[email protected]> wrote: > >"Steve Hayes" <[email protected]> wrote in message >news:[email protected] >> >> So what is a Stray? This is a person who is described in a record as being >> from, or connected with, a place outside the area in which they normally >> lived >> or were born. >> > >But how far away does "outside" mean? The next parish? The next county? And >how long is 'normally lived"? I have ag labs in my databases who seemed to >specialise in having each of their large number of kids in a new parish.... The Cambridge strays project seem to regard it as meaning "out of county" which, here in South Africa, and in Canada, one might regard as "out of province, and in Oz and the US they might regard as "out of state" and so on for other places. Of course in places close to the borders it might not apply. If you couldn't find someone in Newcastle (NBL) you ought to think of looking in Gateshead, and in Kansas City (Missouri) and Kansas City (Kansas) and so on. So the exact limits of what is included might vary in borderline (in both senses of the word) cases. Here are some from my files that I would count as strays. These are all taken from one source: death notices in deceased estate (probate) files, but you could find trhe same kind of thing in other sources as well. Ainscough, John Died: 28 Aug 1914 RSA, TVL, Standerton Born: England, Blackrod, Anderton, Arthur Goldthorpe Died: 16 Feb 1926 Newcastle, Natal Born: Port St Johns, Transkei, Cape, Bagot, Walter Lewis Died: 26 May 1927 RSA, TVL, Johannesburg, Parktown Born: England, Barrett, Beatrice Elizabeth Died: 22 Jun 1959 Nongoma, Zululand, Natal Born: Shropshire, England, Beningfield, Annie Theresa Died: 27 Apr 1950 Kokstad, Mount Currie, Cape Born: Greytown, Natal, 13 Oct 1867 Blew, Thomas Harry Died: 28 May 1946 Marshlands, Mooi River, Natal Born: England, Boyce, Constance Lilian Kingwill Died: 23 Apr 1970 Nelspruit Born: Aberdeen, CP, 22 Sep 1880 Brown, Joseph Ellis Died: 16 Apr 1919 Kinnoull, Ridge Road, Durban Born: Atwell, Cambs, England, Burnard, James Fry Leslie Died: 17 Feb 1945 Italy Born: Claremont, Cape, South Africa, Cathcart, Frederick John Died: 28 Feb 1970 Hillcrest, Natal Born: Woolich, England (Woolwich), 24 Jul 1888 Cherrington, Richard Layton Died: 2 Sep 1943 off the shores of Italy Born: Uitenhage, Chester, Mary Alice Died: 22 Oct 1948 37 Howard Avenue, Durban Born: England, 1871 Cobban, Robert McLean Died: 2 Nov 1957 Pietermaritzburg Born: Johannesburg, Cottam, John Bagot Died: 10 Aug 1909 at residence Born: Salford, England, Cottam, William Hutchinson Died: 30 Nov 1946 Maranatha, Talana Road, Calremont, Cape Born: England, Crawley, Leslie Henry Died: 27 May 1966 15 Fourth Avenue, Greyville, Durban Born: Harrismith, Crighton, Martha Died: 4 Sep 1924 Royal Hotel, Durban Born: Capetown, Crighton, William Donald Died: 8 Dec 1966 Provincial Hospital, Port Shepstone Born: Cape Town, Davis, Oliver Died: 26 Dec 1927 Pook's Hill, Helpmekaar Dist Born: Abingdon, Berks, England, De Beer, Johannes Johan Martin Enslin de Beer Died: 14 Mar 1974 Ceres W/s 1001 Jacob Mare Straat 229 Born: Standerton, 20 May 1905 Decker, Jessie Died: 26 Sep 1937 RSA, TVL, Standerton Born: RSA, Eastern Cape, East London, Deeks, Herbert Hall Died: 16 Jul 1949 Mountain View Guest Farm, PO Hennops River Born: Norwich, England, Devantier, Ivan Melvin Died: 6 Apr 1968 Apple Orchard Dist, Vereeniging Born: King William's Town, 11 Jul 1927 Devantier, Mary Caroline Theresa Died: 10 Jul 1956 37 Johannes Street, Troyeville, Johannesburg Born: Queenstown, Devantier, Philip Cecil Died: 4 Nov 1964 187 Kitchener Ave, Kensington, Jhb Born: King William's Town, South Africa, Ellis, Arthur Joseph Died: 21 Oct 1938 Durban Born: Tasmania, 1866 Falconer, Robert Fraser Died: 13 Mar 1964 Far East Rand Hospital, Springs Born: Nairn, Scotland, Falconer, Winnie Amelia Died: 20 Jun 1973 Kempton Park Born: Queenstown, 19 Nov 1888 Falkenberg, Albert Eric Died: 27 Apr 1938 RSA, TVL, Brakpan Born: Cape Province, Falkenberg, Friedrich Heinrich Died: 23 Apr 1901 Farm Glenred, Dist Vryburg Born: in Germany, Fissler, Elizabeth Anne Died: 19 Nov 1936 Pretoria Born: Germany, Foster, Thomas Died: 11 Aug 1903 Stainton, Ixopo, Natal Born: England, Francis, Gladys Lilian Died: 11 Mar 1968 Durban Born: Johannesburg, 29 Jul 1894 Fraser, James Herbert Died: 24 Jan 1930 Zeekoewater, Witbank Born: Grahamstown, Green, Isabella Died: 1 Sep 1853 9 Church Square, Graaff Reinet Born: Cockermouth, Cumberland, England, Green, Mary Elizabeth Died: 18 APR 1952 RSA, TVL, Johannesburg, Florence N. Born: Nr, Omaruru, SWA, Nov 1865 Greenaway, Edward William Isaac Died: 28 Feb 1972 RSA, TVL, Johannesburg, Kensington Born: RSA, Natal, Newcastle, 7 Jan 1920 Greenaway, Jane Died: 13 Feb 1913 Pietermaritzburg, Natal Born: Kilkampton, Cornwall, England, Greenaway, Richard Henry William Died: 12 Feb 1904 Verulam, Alexandra county, Natal Born: Cathcart, East London (sic), Growden, Joseph Died: 20 Sep 1920 RSA, TVL, Johannesburg, Kensington Born: ENG, Cornwall, Growdon, Florence Died: 8 Jan 1926 9 Symond Street, Kroonstad Born: Cathcart, Growdon, George Frederick Died: 20-10-1954 Durban Born: East London, Harris, Richard Vause Died: 21 Jun 1969 Johannesburg Born: Durban, 16 Aug 1930 Hart-Davis, Geoffrey Charles Died: 9 Dec 1941 on active service betwee Sollum & Bandia Born: Natal, Haupt, Elizabeth Jacoba Died: 15 Jan 1969 Vanderbijlpark Born: Paarl, 2 Jul 1884 Herbert, Adelaide Died: 10 Aug 1909 268 Florida Road, Durban Born: Salford, Manchester, England, Hickman, Annie Louisa Devereux Died: 13 Jun 1951 Arcadia Nursing Home, Pretoira Born: Durban, Hickman, Helena Alberhta de Villiers Died: 30 May 1957 Greytown Hospital, Greytown Born: Rivier Zonder End, Cape, South Africa, 14 Jul 1900 Hickman, Mona Preston Died: 24 Jun 1960 Lady Dudley Nursing Home, Johannesburg Born: Queenstown, Hill, Elaine Died: 2 Mar 1953 National Road, Newcastle Born: Worcester, Cape, 28 Dec 1921 Holland, Winifred Died: 2 Aug 1936 General Hospital, Johannesburg Born: Adelaide, Cape, Hurst, Edwin Henry Died: 13 Mar 1961 Kero Court, Johannesburg Born: England, Isted, Agnes Maude Died: 9 Oct 1968 Durban Born: Unknown, 4 Aug 1852 King, Anne Lindsay Died: 23 NOV 1958 RSA, TVL, Pretoria, 282 Preller St Born: ENG, CUL, Windermere, 1889 Koch, Constance Lilian Kingwill Died: 23 Apr 1970 Nelspruit Hospital Born: Willowmore, Cape, 22 Sep 1880 Koch, Minnie Died: 2 Feb 1945 Nelspoort Hospital, Beaufort West Distric Born: Rietbron, Willowmore, Koch, Minnie Florence Died: 1 Feb 1937 Far East Rand Hospital, Springs Born: Uitenhage, Capew, Abt Nov 1891 Large, William George Died: 11 Jul 1916 France Born: Manderston Kent, England, > >I think that strays indexes are wonderful things, and I'm building indexes >of Whitsome & Hilton (BEW) strays myself. Because these indexes are for a >limited area (one parish) and my own use, I can afford to be fairly loose >with my definition of "stray" but it all got out of hand until I limited the >definition to people who moved away from their birth/baptism parish(which >means that every child in some families is regarded as a stray from a >different parish to its siblings That too, though I wouldn't count adjacent or nearby parishes as strays for most purposes. The main point is that if someone died far away from the place where they were born or lived, a strays index can alert you about the possibility of finding records in different places. It works both ways, too. Someone in South Africa looking for Adelaide Herbert: Herbert, Adelaide Died: 10 Aug 1909 268 Florida Road, Durban Born: Salford, Manchester, England, knowing that she was born in Salford, could then look further in English censuses. Someone in the UK, wondering why her death record isn't (for example) in FreeBMD, would know to look in records of deaths in Durban. > >You are never going to satisfy everyone, but it's still worth doing. I think >that you should decide on a definition that suits you (out of parish, out of >county, or whatever), state it clearly on page 1, together with any other >ground rules you need to make the thing manageable, and stick to them. > >Lesley Robertson > -- Steve Hayes Web: http://hayesgreene.wordpress.com/ http://hayesgreene.blogspot.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afgen/
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:12:48 +0200, Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote: >On Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:01:47 +0200, "Lesley Robertson" ><[email protected]> wrote: > >> >>"Steve Hayes" <[email protected]> wrote in message >>news:[email protected] >>> >>> So what is a Stray? This is a person who is described in a record as being >>> from, or connected with, a place outside the area in which they normally >>> lived >>> or were born. >>> >> >>But how far away does "outside" mean? The next parish? The next county? And >>how long is 'normally lived"? I have ag labs in my databases who seemed to >>specialise in having each of their large number of kids in a new parish.... > >The Cambridge strays project seem to regard it as meaning "out of county" >which, here in South Africa, and in Canada, one might regard as "out of >province, and in Oz and the US they might regard as "out of state" and so on >for other places. > Not necessarily an equivalent comparison as "out of county" is usually still within the same jurisdiction unlike "out of province/state". Those are more comparable to "out of country" within the UK (England/Scotland/[Northern] Ireland). One inference in "Cambridge strays" is "not in Cambridge" although if it deals with the county then it should "Cambridgeshire strays" or to avoid doubt "strays from/in Cambridgeshire" as strays indexes can IME deal with either case. In practice the manner of being "stray" ought to be easily identifiable in a short descriptive title as in the last example above unlike in the shorter "Cambridge strays". >Of course in places close to the borders it might not apply. If you couldn't >find someone in Newcastle (NBL) you ought to think of looking in Gateshead, >and in Kansas City (Missouri) and Kansas City (Kansas) and so on. So the exact >limits of what is included might vary in borderline (in both senses of the >word) cases. > >Here are some from my files that I would count as strays. These are all taken >from one source: death notices in deceased estate (probate) files, but you >could find trhe same kind of thing in other sources as well. > > >Ainscough, John Died: 28 Aug 1914 > RSA, TVL, Standerton > Born: England, Blackrod, >Anderton, Arthur Goldthorpe Died: 16 Feb 1926 > Newcastle, Natal > Born: Port St Johns, Transkei, Cape, >Bagot, Walter Lewis Died: 26 May 1927 > RSA, TVL, Johannesburg, Parktown > Born: England, >Barrett, Beatrice Elizabeth Died: 22 Jun 1959 > Nongoma, Zululand, Natal > Born: Shropshire, England, >Beningfield, Annie Theresa Died: 27 Apr 1950 > Kokstad, Mount Currie, Cape > Born: Greytown, Natal, 13 Oct 1867 >Blew, Thomas Harry Died: 28 May 1946 > Marshlands, Mooi River, Natal > Born: England, >Boyce, Constance Lilian Kingwill Died: 23 Apr 1970 > Nelspruit > Born: Aberdeen, CP, 22 Sep 1880 >Brown, Joseph Ellis Died: 16 Apr 1919 > Kinnoull, Ridge Road, Durban > Born: Atwell, Cambs, England, >Burnard, James Fry Leslie Died: 17 Feb 1945 > Italy > Born: Claremont, Cape, South Africa, >Cathcart, Frederick John Died: 28 Feb 1970 > Hillcrest, Natal > Born: Woolich, England (Woolwich), 24 Jul 1888 >Cherrington, Richard Layton Died: 2 Sep 1943 > off the shores of Italy > Born: Uitenhage, >Chester, Mary Alice Died: 22 Oct 1948 > 37 Howard Avenue, Durban > Born: England, 1871 >Cobban, Robert McLean Died: 2 Nov 1957 > Pietermaritzburg > Born: Johannesburg, >Cottam, John Bagot Died: 10 Aug 1909 > at residence > Born: Salford, England, >Cottam, William Hutchinson Died: 30 Nov 1946 > Maranatha, Talana Road, Calremont, Cape > Born: England, >Crawley, Leslie Henry Died: 27 May 1966 > 15 Fourth Avenue, Greyville, Durban > Born: Harrismith, >Crighton, Martha Died: 4 Sep 1924 > Royal Hotel, Durban > Born: Capetown, >Crighton, William Donald Died: 8 Dec 1966 > Provincial Hospital, Port Shepstone > Born: Cape Town, >Davis, Oliver Died: 26 Dec 1927 > Pook's Hill, Helpmekaar Dist > Born: Abingdon, Berks, England, >De Beer, Johannes Johan Martin Enslin de Beer Died: 14 Mar 1974 > Ceres W/s 1001 Jacob Mare Straat 229 > Born: Standerton, 20 May 1905 >Decker, Jessie Died: 26 Sep 1937 > RSA, TVL, Standerton > Born: RSA, Eastern Cape, East London, >Deeks, Herbert Hall Died: 16 Jul 1949 > Mountain View Guest Farm, PO Hennops River > Born: Norwich, England, >Devantier, Ivan Melvin Died: 6 Apr 1968 > Apple Orchard Dist, Vereeniging > Born: King William's Town, 11 Jul 1927 >Devantier, Mary Caroline Theresa Died: 10 Jul 1956 > 37 Johannes Street, Troyeville, Johannesburg > Born: Queenstown, >Devantier, Philip Cecil Died: 4 Nov 1964 > 187 Kitchener Ave, Kensington, Jhb > Born: King William's Town, South Africa, >Ellis, Arthur Joseph Died: 21 Oct 1938 > Durban > Born: Tasmania, 1866 >Falconer, Robert Fraser Died: 13 Mar 1964 > Far East Rand Hospital, Springs > Born: Nairn, Scotland, >Falconer, Winnie Amelia Died: 20 Jun 1973 > Kempton Park > Born: Queenstown, 19 Nov 1888 >Falkenberg, Albert Eric Died: 27 Apr 1938 > RSA, TVL, Brakpan > Born: Cape Province, >Falkenberg, Friedrich Heinrich Died: 23 Apr 1901 > Farm Glenred, Dist Vryburg > Born: in Germany, >Fissler, Elizabeth Anne Died: 19 Nov 1936 > Pretoria > Born: Germany, >Foster, Thomas Died: 11 Aug 1903 > Stainton, Ixopo, Natal > Born: England, >Francis, Gladys Lilian Died: 11 Mar 1968 > Durban > Born: Johannesburg, 29 Jul 1894 >Fraser, James Herbert Died: 24 Jan 1930 > Zeekoewater, Witbank > Born: Grahamstown, >Green, Isabella Died: 1 Sep 1853 > 9 Church Square, Graaff Reinet > Born: Cockermouth, Cumberland, England, >Green, Mary Elizabeth Died: 18 APR 1952 > RSA, TVL, Johannesburg, Florence N. > Born: Nr, Omaruru, SWA, Nov 1865 >Greenaway, Edward William Isaac Died: 28 Feb 1972 > RSA, TVL, Johannesburg, Kensington > Born: RSA, Natal, Newcastle, 7 Jan 1920 >Greenaway, Jane Died: 13 Feb 1913 > Pietermaritzburg, Natal > Born: Kilkampton, Cornwall, England, >Greenaway, Richard Henry William Died: 12 Feb 1904 > Verulam, Alexandra county, Natal > Born: Cathcart, East London (sic), >Growden, Joseph Died: 20 Sep 1920 > RSA, TVL, Johannesburg, Kensington > Born: ENG, Cornwall, >Growdon, Florence Died: 8 Jan 1926 > 9 Symond Street, Kroonstad > Born: Cathcart, >Growdon, George Frederick Died: 20-10-1954 > Durban > Born: East London, >Harris, Richard Vause Died: 21 Jun 1969 > Johannesburg > Born: Durban, 16 Aug 1930 >Hart-Davis, Geoffrey Charles Died: 9 Dec 1941 > on active service betwee Sollum & Bandia > Born: Natal, >Haupt, Elizabeth Jacoba Died: 15 Jan 1969 > Vanderbijlpark > Born: Paarl, 2 Jul 1884 >Herbert, Adelaide Died: 10 Aug 1909 > 268 Florida Road, Durban > Born: Salford, Manchester, England, >Hickman, Annie Louisa Devereux Died: 13 Jun 1951 > Arcadia Nursing Home, Pretoira > Born: Durban, >Hickman, Helena Alberhta de Villiers Died: 30 May 1957 > Greytown Hospital, Greytown > Born: Rivier Zonder End, Cape, South Africa, 14 Jul 1900 >Hickman, Mona Preston Died: 24 Jun 1960 > Lady Dudley Nursing Home, Johannesburg > Born: Queenstown, >Hill, Elaine Died: 2 Mar 1953 > National Road, Newcastle > Born: Worcester, Cape, 28 Dec 1921 >Holland, Winifred Died: 2 Aug 1936 > General Hospital, Johannesburg > Born: Adelaide, Cape, >Hurst, Edwin Henry Died: 13 Mar 1961 > Kero Court, Johannesburg > Born: England, >Isted, Agnes Maude Died: 9 Oct 1968 > Durban > Born: Unknown, 4 Aug 1852 >King, Anne Lindsay Died: 23 NOV 1958 > RSA, TVL, Pretoria, 282 Preller St > Born: ENG, CUL, Windermere, 1889 >Koch, Constance Lilian Kingwill Died: 23 Apr 1970 > Nelspruit Hospital > Born: Willowmore, Cape, 22 Sep 1880 >Koch, Minnie Died: 2 Feb 1945 > Nelspoort Hospital, Beaufort West Distric > Born: Rietbron, Willowmore, >Koch, Minnie Florence Died: 1 Feb 1937 > Far East Rand Hospital, Springs > Born: Uitenhage, Capew, Abt Nov 1891 >Large, William George Died: 11 Jul 1916 > France > Born: Manderston Kent, England, > >> >>I think that strays indexes are wonderful things, and I'm building indexes >>of Whitsome & Hilton (BEW) strays myself. Because these indexes are for a >>limited area (one parish) and my own use, I can afford to be fairly loose >>with my definition of "stray" but it all got out of hand until I limited the >>definition to people who moved away from their birth/baptism parish(which >>means that every child in some families is regarded as a stray from a >>different parish to its siblings > >That too, though I wouldn't count adjacent or nearby parishes as strays for >most purposes. > >The main point is that if someone died far away from the place where they were >born or lived, a strays index can alert you about the possibility of finding >records in different places. > >It works both ways, too. > >Someone in South Africa looking for Adelaide Herbert: > >Herbert, Adelaide Died: 10 Aug 1909 > 268 Florida Road, Durban > Born: Salford, Manchester, England, > >knowing that she was born in Salford, could then look further in English >censuses. > >Someone in the UK, wondering why her death record isn't (for example) in >FreeBMD, would know to look in records of deaths in Durban. > > > > > > >> >>You are never going to satisfy everyone, but it's still worth doing. I think >>that you should decide on a definition that suits you (out of parish, out of >>county, or whatever), state it clearly on page 1, together with any other >>ground rules you need to make the thing manageable, and stick to them. >> >>Lesley Robertson >>
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"Steve Hayes" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected] > > So what is a Stray? This is a person who is described in a record as being > from, or connected with, a place outside the area in which they normally > lived > or were born. > But how far away does "outside" mean? The next parish? The next county? And how long is 'normally lived"? I have ag labs in my databases who seemed to specialise in having each of their large number of kids in a new parish.... I think that strays indexes are wonderful things, and I'm building indexes of Whitsome & Hilton (BEW) strays myself. Because these indexes are for a limited area (one parish) and my own use, I can afford to be fairly loose with my definition of "stray" but it all got out of hand until I limited the definition to people who moved away from their birth/baptism parish(which means that every child in some families is regarded as a stray from a different parish to its siblings You are never going to satisfy everyone, but it's still worth doing. I think that you should decide on a definition that suits you (out of parish, out of county, or whatever), state it clearly on page 1, together with any other ground rules you need to make the thing manageable, and stick to them. Lesley Robertson
On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:20:25 -0400, Bob LeChevalier <[email protected]> wrote: >In passing, I think a clearer definition of what identifies someone as >a "stray" is needed. > >I don't know how to express it in terms of your database, but one area >of "strays" I have been trying to deal with are people living in a >household on a census who are not obviously members of the family of >the head of household. These include roomers and boarders, and prior >to 1880 may include family members with different surnames whose >relationship isn't apparent (like inlaws and nieces/nephews). In >rural areas there are people working as laborers who may be local, or >may be from some other county or state. Farther back, there are >teachers and merchants who show up in households where they lived for >only a short while but then moved on. I suppose the question to ask is whether the database would have enough information in it to enable someone searching the database for a person to find them if they are there. for example, if a person was born and married in one place, but you cannot find a record of their death there. As for definitions, here are some used by some family history societies: Stray Definitions In their purest form "Strays" are persons who were born within the County with a reference recorded outside of the County of birth. The 13,000+ strays recorded for Cambridgeshire do not necessary fall into this pure format. There are various categories. Stray Born in the County of Cambridgeshire with an event recorded outside of the County Out of County Marriage A person resident within Cambridgeshire but married outside of the County Transient A person moving from/to Cambridgeshire e.g Settlement Examination or Removal Order Settlement Papers. The parishes were required to look after their own poor. This could become a burden. So when someone wanted to move into a parish and they appeared to be unable to support themselves - i.e. a single woman expecting a child - the parish tried to determine if that person could claim welfare from the parish. If not they were sent back to their own parish. There are at several forms for settlement papers. Examination papers, settlement certificates and removal papers. Settlement Certificates record the movement from a place, county to another place, county. Settlement Examination Papers detail the place a person was living, county and the place they would like to settle at. Removal Orders detail a place, county where a person had settled and the place, county to which they were being lawfully removed to. Academic A person who by residence is associated with Cambridge University but not the County Military A person serving with the Cambridgeshire Miltia or the Armed Forces relating to Cambridgeshire but not necessarily a resident of Cambridgeshire Manorial Records and Wills Persons mentioned as witnesses, beneficiaries, bondsmen, etc. within Manorial Records, Wills, Inventories, etc. These persons may be resident within the County or external to it. Other Ad hoc references to persons living or born in Cambridgeshire who are mentioned in various articles or documents http://www.cfhs.org.uk/Strays/ That site does give the kind of information they collect for strays, but it doesn't fit in the ten field allowed for the YahooGroups databases, so I'm asking what people think is the most important information. Here's another definition from the English Fenderation of Family History Societies: So what is a Stray? This is a person who is described in a record as being from, or connected with, a place outside the area in which they normally lived or were born. Here are a few examples: A family may have emigrated and their burial recorded overseas on a headstone which states where they came from in the UK: there may be a newspaper obituary giving details of other members of their family left back home: a girl who went into service then married many miles away from her parish: a soldier serving in the West Indies or in India, or one killed in action: a family awaiting removal from one parish back to their original birth place: the baptism of a child belonging to a Militia man stationed far from home: seamens tickets: convictions and transportations: and many, many more interesting records covering all dates to the present century. Just imagine how it will feel to finally find that Great Uncle Charlie was buried in South Africa during the Boer War when the last record you could find was the 1881 census record! How long were you looking for him? How many blind alleys did you go up? This project could help solve such problems of disappearing ancestors for so many family historians, worldwide. http://www.ffhs.org.uk/projects/strays.php <some examples snipped> >I don't want to send this without noting another kind of stray: wives. >Without a marriage record, virtually every married woman is a stray of >a kind with no obvious link to ancestors unless the family has inlaws >present in the household. And yet surely one would not want a strays >database to include all married women whose maiden name and parents >are unknown without something distinguishing them from other sorts of >strays. I had one yesterday. A family where the father was born and died in Cumberland, UK, and most of the children were born there, moved around a lot, and some of the children married and settled down elsewhere. The 1841 census shows the wife as not born in the same country (yet most "public" online trees show her as being born there, yet someone has found a record showing that their marriage took place in the neighbouring country of Lancashire. The record of her death would show her as a stray from Lancashire. The record of her marriage would show her husband as a stray. And so on. -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:29:31 +0200, Mike Fry <[email protected]> wrote: >In article <[email protected]>, >[email protected] says... > >> I am thinking of creating a database for people to record strays on >> these sites, and thought I would ask for advice on what to include in >> such a database, especially from those who may have had some >> experience of strays indexes. > >> Comments and suggestions welcome. > >There's a database in existence already. It's called FreeREG :-) >Couldn't these entries be submitted there? No, because FreeREG is a database with a different purpose. It is for people whose names appear in UK church registers. -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says... > I am thinking of creating a database for people to record strays on > these sites, and thought I would ask for advice on what to include in > such a database, especially from those who may have had some > experience of strays indexes. > Comments and suggestions welcome. There's a database in existence already. It's called FreeREG :-) Couldn't these entries be submitted there? -- Regards, Mike Fry Johannesburg.
Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote: >On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:58:54 +0200, Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote: > >>I am thinking of creating a database for people to record strays on these >>sites, and thought I would ask for advice on what to include in such a >>database, especially from those who may have had some experience of strays >>indexes. > >Thanks to those who have responded, though none actually answered the question >-- about which fields would be most useful for collecting information on >strays, and whether there is any agreed standard format for strays databases. > >I've written more about it here: > >http://hayesgreene.blogspot.com/2011/06/strays-databases-and-indexes.html > >and would be grateful if anyone could pass it on to strays coordinators they >know. > >The aim of the exercise is not to engage in headscratching about whether >people were or were not "strays", but rather to collect information about >obvious strays and, if possible, pass them on to the strays coordinator of the >family history society concerned. In passing, I think a clearer definition of what identifies someone as a "stray" is needed. I don't know how to express it in terms of your database, but one area of "strays" I have been trying to deal with are people living in a household on a census who are not obviously members of the family of the head of household. These include roomers and boarders, and prior to 1880 may include family members with different surnames whose relationship isn't apparent (like inlaws and nieces/nephews). In rural areas there are people working as laborers who may be local, or may be from some other county or state. Farther back, there are teachers and merchants who show up in households where they lived for only a short while but then moved on. Less often, there are people living alone who have surnames not otherwise found in the district being enumerated. Sometimes these are just elderly people whose spouse died or whose kids have moved away, and other times they are people who are in the census district this year but who won't be found on the preceding or succeeding census. I've been working on one enumeration district of a rural Georgia county in 1860 as part of a place study. Some 540 people in the district, and I've connected most of them to other people in the district. I have one or two families not connected to any other in the district that lived elsewhere in both 1850 and 1870, and maybe a dozen of the 540 are individual people who are of the type described above that I can find no clear trace of in other censuses. (I am being very thorough in seeking connections, and suspect that others looking at the district, might label as many as 10-15% of the population as "strays", instead of the 3% that I have.) Urban areas, especially big cities that are immigration magnets, may have districts where a high percentage of the inhabitants are "strays" of this sort. My father was born in a mining town in northern Michigan where a high percentage were recent immigrants from a variety of countries, and many were living in group boarding houses. Maybe half of them settled in the area, but others returned to the home country or migrated to other locales. The enumerators were horrible at spelling all the foreign names, so tracing families in that county is often difficult even if people remained. The reason I and my friend are doing this study is primarily to find one such "stray". His grandfather was born in 1869 to a man and his wife who were married in this county in 1868; the woman's family is known and numerous in the county. In the 1870 census, the boy and his mother are living 300 miles away in Alabama; in 1880, she is in the same locale and married, but the boy cannot be found, and indeed doesn't resurface until he married my friend's grandmother in 1909 several states away (Missouri). So the grandfather himself is presumably a stray in 1880 and 1900 (his stepfamily is nearby in 1910, though his surname is misspelled and he and his wife are boarding, so any non-diligent search would have called him a stray in 1910 as well). But his father, the "stray" we are seeking, we have only a name for from the marriage license and the family name (Burgess), and Y-DNA shows that my friend is not related to any other known Burgess (and not closely related to anyone else at all, though a couple of single-base-pair differences pertain to families found in South Carolina.). The father has been found on no census, and is probably unrelated to any Burgess in the area. But perhaps somewhere in the county, we will find a clue. >From the above examples of strays - the grandfather. his father, and those in the mining town who did not remain there, each would probably have different data available that might be useful in identifying them. I don't want to send this without noting another kind of stray: wives. Without a marriage record, virtually every married woman is a stray of a kind with no obvious link to ancestors unless the family has inlaws present in the household. And yet surely one would not want a strays database to include all married women whose maiden name and parents are unknown without something distinguishing them from other sorts of strays. lojbab --- Bob LeChevalier - artificial linguist; genealogist [email protected] Lojban language www.lojban.org
And that's my point. There are some obvious strays e.g. "Bill Brown, died Brisbane 12.3.2000 while holidaying in Australia, deeply mourned by his family in Outer Mongolia". There are obvious locals "Bill Brown, born lived and died in beautiful Brisbane". And there's a whole bunch in between, where we don't have much idea one way or the other. So rather than put the energy into spotting strays (since you will inevitably miss a lot), just transcribe the lot: locals, strays and everyone else. Make it Google searchable. If each of us set ourselves the task of doing this with just one set of records (say BDMs in a local newspaper for a year), everyone becomes a whole lot for find-able than they are today. Kerry
On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:58:54 +0200, Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote: >I am thinking of creating a database for people to record strays on these >sites, and thought I would ask for advice on what to include in such a >database, especially from those who may have had some experience of strays >indexes. Thanks to those who have responded, though none actually answered the question -- about which fields would be most useful for collecting information on strays, and whether there is any agreed standard format for strays databases. I've written more about it here: http://hayesgreene.blogspot.com/2011/06/strays-databases-and-indexes.html and would be grateful if anyone could pass it on to strays coordinators they know. The aim of the exercise is not to engage in headscratching about whether people were or were not "strays", but rather to collect information about obvious strays and, if possible, pass them on to the strays coordinator of the family history society concerned. -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 14:49:17 -0700 (PDT), JacobSmith <[email protected]> wrote: >Genealogy & History Research Home Business Plan What's that supposed to mean? -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
On 2011-06-13, Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 14:49:17 -0700 (PDT), JacobSmith <[email protected]> > wrote: > >>Genealogy & History Research Home Business Plan > > What's that supposed to mean? Do you think the original URL might have been spam? :-) -- Robert Riches [email protected] (Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)
On Sunday 12 June 2011 21:32, Steve Hayes ([email protected]) opined: > On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 14:49:17 -0700 (PDT), JacobSmith <[email protected]> > wrote: > >>Genealogy & History Research Home Business Plan > > What's that supposed to mean? > Now you, too, can successfully run a genealogical research business from the comfort of your home. My take on it, anyway. More likely, he's discovered the wonders of spamming usenet and ... Suspicious Ol' Bob -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes -- Thomas Paine
On 06-12-2011 00:50, Steve Hayes wrote: > On Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:42:00 -0400, singhals<[email protected]> wrote: > >> If all you've got is a cemetery stone, you have to assume >> he's not a stray. If you've got the obituary that says the >> man's from Inner Mongolia and buried here -- he's a stray. (g) > > I've found many gravestones in South African cemetaries that say the person is > from somewhere else. I have a lot of relatives who moved from Illinois to Kansas. Some of them have gravestones in both places. I do not know which place was the actual interment. My Uncle Jack is buried in Oklahoma next to his wife. He never lived there, and she moved away from there before he met her. -- Wes Groleau There are two types of people in the world … http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1157
Tom Wetmore wrote: > Ian, > >> And how do you deal with: >> >> John, son of William Goddard bapt 30 Jun 1753 >> John, son of Jonathan Goddard bapt 16 Sep 1753 >> John Goddard, aged 61 buried 24 Dec 1814 >> >> Clearly the John in the burial (and various other records) could be >> either of the first two. It took me years to gather various bits of >> circumstantial evidence which, taken together, helped me decide which. >> In the interim there is no S/W that I know of which would allow me to >> record that I had an adult which could with 50/50 probability be either >> of two infants because what's there follows alternative 1 which assumes >> I will know who's who & merge the John of one of the baptisms with the >> John of the burial with no error - because picking apart erroneous >> merges is a complete pain. > > I have thought about this problem a little bit. First the obvious: > > In my model I would create 3 persona (evidence person) records for the > 3 Johns (and also for the 2 other persons mentioned). Normally I would > want to decide which of the first 2 Johns was the same as the 3rd and > create a person record that bound those 2 together (in a 2-level record > tree). But, if faced with your example, that is, no way to decide, > possibly forever, what could you do? One obvious answer would be to > put a note in the 3rd John saying that one of the first 2 is the same > person but it can't be determined which. > > Another approach I have > considered, and will likely implement in DeadEnds, is to allow the > user to create 2 2-tier persons, one joining the 1st and 3rd, and the > second joining the 2nd and 3rd, that is allow 1 persona record > (the old John) to be joined and appear in TWO person/persona trees. > > Controversial? Sure, but the software could keep track of the > ambiguous state of the persona records, even request that you > add notes to the two overlapping person trees to describe the > situation. > > I don't think there is much else one can practically do for your example. > Have you any other ideas, given that you could define the software > any way you wanted? What I'd like to have done would been to have two types of entity. One, with several instances of John (and one each for Jonathan and William) would be for names from records. The other type of entity would be for reconstructions. I'd have a single entity of this type for John Goddard of Burnlee - I'd use suitable epithets to distinguish between this John & Johns of other generations. I'd have link entities between this reconstruction & the various personae. There's good evidence to link John of Burnlee to several baptisms of children at Burnlee & to a marriage so these would all be solid links as well as to the burial. I'd then have further links to the two 1753 baptisms with a 50% probability. As further evidence arrived (in favour of the son of Jonathan as it happens) I could vary the probabilities on these links to reflect my changing view until the wrong link could be dispensed with. This is somewhat similar to your approach but my preference is for two different types of entity because they represent two different types of thing, one's a name of a person and the other's a person. The use of link entities also simplifies things in the long run. They can record the confidence one places in the link and if they include a note field they can also hold the reasoning. Also the creation of a link is easy to reverse, unlike merging. In practice this accumulation of evidence took several years but with the nature of existing software the only way to handle this type of situation seems to be either to record it in some form of note or simply keep track of it mentally. -- Ian The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang at austonley org uk
Genealogy & History Research Home Business Plan http://goo.gl/5xWhb
Steve Hayes wrote: > On Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:42:00 -0400, singhals<[email protected]> wrote: > >> If all you've got is a cemetery stone, you have to assume >> he's not a stray. If you've got the obituary that says the >> man's from Inner Mongolia and buried here -- he's a stray. (g) > > I've found many gravestones in South African cemetaries that say the person is > from somewhere else. I'm not accustomed to finding gravestones that give that sort of detail; most of the ones I see say: John Smith born Dec 12th 1884 died June 21st 1955. There's nothing there to suggest he's not where he should be or not where one would expect (the issue of whether he's in a this-denomination Cemetery instead of a that-one doesn't count here). So, yes, if the marker clearly indicates he was out-of-place, he'd be a stray. Cheryl
The difficulty of finding strays is realising that the person is a stray in the first place. And then secondly which of all the strays indexes out there should be consulted. An effective solution to strays must be highly find-able. That means either a solution that ensures that all the people's names can be found using a search engine like Google or putting the information in a place that genealogists might be in the habit of routinely searching (e.g. WorldConnect). For example, we have a database of headstone photos for SE Queensland. Sure, you can come to our site and do searches, but you are probably only going to do this if you think your ancestor is likely to have died in SE Queensland. If you are looking for someone you would have expected to have died in New Zealand (say), you would not think to visit our WWW site (you probably wouldn't even know about i). However, every photo caption on our site is accessible to Google. If you do a Google search for Alexander Keir Brown (to pick an example -- no idea if he's a stray), then Google points you straight at the relevant page on our WWW site. So, I would only go down the route of Yahoo databases if they can be made searchable. Note, what you don't want is for Google to see 1 page with all your strays' names on it. Or else when you search for Alexander Keir Brown, you get returned a page with Alexander Smith, Michael Keir, and Mary Brown. You really want one name (or one record as appropriate, e.g. one headstone) on one page to make the searching more effective. Something like WorldConnect is another solution. Since you upload a GEDCOM to it, you can develop your database in whatever family history software you already use. No need for anything extra. The other question I have is how do you decide someone is a stray in the first place? Having photographed and indexed over 200 cemeteries, frankly there often isn't any good way to know if a headstone might relate to a stray. Back to Alexander Keir Brown, his headstone simply gives his date of birth and date of death. Is he a stray? Honestly I think it would take a lot of research to determine if someone is a stray in the first place. One of the reasons that we started photographing whole cemeteries of headstones is because we discovered that it was actually a whole lot more efficient than photographing individual headstones on request. So really there is probably more value in people indexing/transcribing whatever set of records is available to them and make that very find-able rather than bother about worrying if the individual folk are strays or not. If everyone did that, all the strays would eventually turn up! Kerry
Here is a great link on nominal record linkage: http://books.google.com/books?id=9yL5HMBUnFQC&dq=An%20Optimal%20Theory%20of%20Record%20Linkage&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q=An%20Optimal%20Theory%20of%20Record%20Linkage&f=false It's a proceedings from 1985, but in includes a selection of the classical papers on the topic from as early as the 50s. Tom
Ian, Your two types of records are exactly what I call the persona record and person record. The persona record in the past has been called the "nominal" record for exactly the reason you indicate -- it is the name (plus whatever else info) gleaned from an actual evidence record. (Look up "nominal record linking or linkage on Google for an interesting historical perspective on the beginnings of inferential genealogy.) On the Better GEDCOM wiki the persona record is sometimes called a codified evidence record, since you would normally create them by looking at actual items of evidence and extracting (codifying) information from that evidence in order to create the name/nominal/persona records; In my software I use exactly the same data type for a persona and a person. A "person" is the conclusion person, the record you build up by linking it to persona records. I create multi-tier trees with the persona records at the leaves with a person record at the root (and others in the interior if this is a 3 or more level tree). I create the trees because I never want to destroy my evidence or my conclusions by "flattening" the information in the trees into single records. In nearly all current genealogical software, the person records are nothing more than these flattened, merged records that are nearly impossible to unwind or unmerge. My suggestion was to be able to create these person/persona trees where the same persona record could be in multiple person trees, in your terminology, can be linked to by different person records. This really is exactly the same tree you have when you say you are linking person records to your "name" records. I like your idea of adding estimated probabilities to handle the ambiguous cases. As far as I can tell our desired models are the same. The model is the "DeadEnds" model that I created more than a decade ago as the guide I use in writing my own personal genealogical software. Tom > What I'd like to have done would been to have two types of entity. One, > with several instances of John (and one each for Jonathan and William) > would be for names from records. The other type of entity would be for > reconstructions. I'd have a single entity of this type for John Goddard > of Burnlee - I'd use suitable epithets to distinguish between this John > & Johns of other generations. I'd have link entities between this > reconstruction & the various personae. There's good evidence to link > John of Burnlee to several baptisms of children at Burnlee & to a > marriage so these would all be solid links as well as to the burial. > I'd then have further links to the two 1753 baptisms with a 50% > probability. As further evidence arrived (in favour of the son of > Jonathan as it happens) I could vary the probabilities on these links to > reflect my changing view until the wrong link could be dispensed with. > > This is somewhat similar to your approach but my preference is for two > different types of entity because they represent two different types of > thing, one's a name of a person and the other's a person. The use of > link entities also simplifies things in the long run. They can record > the confidence one places in the link and if they include a note field > they can also hold the reasoning. Also the creation of a link is easy > to reverse, unlike merging. > > In practice this accumulation of evidence took several years but with > the nature of existing software the only way to handle this type of > situation seems to be either to record it in some form of note or simply > keep track of it mentally. > > -- > Ian > > The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang > at austonley org uk