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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: MuttleyS on Thursday 23 December 10 13:00 GMT (UK)

Title: Date abbreviation meaning
Post by: MuttleyS on Thursday 23 December 10 13:00 GMT (UK)

I have come across some dates on the familysearch (LDS) website  that have the letters 'Of,' after the year.

e.g. About 1737 Of, Ticknall, Derby, England

As in this page http://www.rootschat.com/links/0awd/

Does anybody know what this 'Of,' means?

Moderator comment: link shrunk

Title: Re: Date abbreviation meaning
Post by: HeatherLynne on Thursday 23 December 10 13:06 GMT (UK)

I wonder if it's simply that the comma is in the wrong place?  Maybe it should be "About 1737, of Ticknall, Derby, England"

Heather

Title: Re: Date abbreviation meaning
Post by: mosiefish on Thursday 23 December 10 13:47 GMT (UK)

This is a member submitted entry so treat with extreme caution.  Although the date of the marriage "may" be correct, it would need to be verified.   It also looks as though they have used the standard guess of age 25 for the groom and 21 for the bride which may also be incorrect.

Mo

Title: Re: Date abbreviation meaning
Post by: MuttleyS on Thursday 23 December 10 14:04 GMT (UK)

Thanks for the replies.

HeatherLynne you could be right about the comma but it seemed odd that it was a capital O rather than a small o which I think would be more likely if it meant 'of Ticknall....'

I have found other examples as well such as here-

http://www.rootschat.com/links/0awe/

and a few others.

I suppose it is still possible that the comma was placed wrongly several times.

Thanks for the advice mosiefish. I am fairly new at this game so any advice from more experienced people like yourself and HeatherLynne is welcome.

I was just wondering if the 'Of' was a well known abbreviation relating to dates that I hadn't come across yet. Obviously not!

Moderator comment: link shrunk

Title: Re: Date abbreviation meaning
Post by: MuttleyS on Thursday 23 December 10 14:19 GMT (UK)

HeatherLynne - this example shows that I think your first thought was correct, just the comma in the wrong place -

http://www.rootschat.com/links/0awf/

Moderator comment: link shrunk

Title: Re: Date abbreviation meaning
Post by: PrueM on Thursday 23 December 10 19:55 GMT (UK)

Hi Muttley,

I've seen this on hundreds of member-submitted entries on the IGI. I can't explain why it's in the format it's in, but it seems to be fairly standard for these entries.

Mo is correct about the reliability (or otherwise) of these entries - there is plenty of discussion on Rootschat about it, but basically you need to double and triple-check all the member-submitted entries as many of them are no better than uneducated guesses  :-\

Cheers
Prue