singhals wrote: > A few weeks ago (or was it months?) we had another round of "the best > way to enter place names". > > I came down firmly against including the parish name. This week that > viewpoint hardened even more, thanks to a relative-by-marriage who died > about a year ago. > > Aunt Ett (NOT her real name) shared data on her Swedish line with me, so > someone else would have it. The Swedish data was found for her by a > professional researcher who charged her dearly about 15-20 years ago. He > did NOT provide her copies (I'm guessing microfilm copiers weren't > prolific yet or maybe she told him she didn't need official copies and > he didn't want to make plain ones; dunno), just the prose reports. So, > when I entered it into a genie program for her, I typed what was there. > What else could I do? > > Now that a lot of Swedish records are on-line, I've been trying to > confirm what he gave her. First off, let me say, yeah, he earned his > money. And, no, so far he doesn't seem to have made anything up, > precisely. He does seem to have reported things as "fact" when I would > have labelled them "alleged facts" if I'd been charging for 'em, but > that could be /my/ problem rather than /a/ problem. > > Anyway, in confirming the material at hand, I'm discovering that in some > instances, he reported places as Parish, State; in some it was district, > state; in some it was parish, district. I'm sure HE knew where they > were, but after a week of intense digging, /I'm/ still not sure. I'll > put money on the notion that Aunt Ett didn't know either! > > The research isn't made easier by the local guvvmint's geographic > changes in 1952 (about half-a-century after the last contact over there > died), or by the lack of cross-references in catalogues to those pre- > and post- locales. I can only be grateful I'm not looking in the early > 1700s and dealing with that episode of Swedish independence vis-a-vis > calendars! > > It wouldn't have /killed/ that researcher to have added Parish to the > parish name. Which is why it's best to record the entities *as they existed at the time* and to have the flexibility to enter it that way into the genie program & not be restricted to some US-centric fixed format. > Nor so I see that it would have diminished his machismo any > to have hand-added the flaming diacriticals! Memories of the Swedish chef ;) -- Ian The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang at austonley org uk