RootsChat.Com
Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: Leon47 on Monday 18 August 25 16:08 BST (UK)
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I've often wondered about best practice with this.
If I know the date of a birth event, obviously I have an actual date to record against it.
If I don't have an exact date but do have an approximate year (say from an age given on a census) I can put something like c.1865.
But then what do you put if you have just the name of a Father on an old marriage registration? The son could be one of up to 14 children (I have ancestor families that big) and if none of the other siblings is known, any approximation of the fathers year of birth would be very wide of the mark, even if you assume he was married at age 21.
My Genealogy program (Family Historian) allows me to enter something like 'around 1861' or 'between 1835 and 1845' or 'before 1845' but it treats it as a Date Phrase, which isn't recognised when I export things to other programs.
I could just put 'Unknown' but that isn't really true or useful.
So what is good practice when you want to enter the year when a person was born but don't have much to go on? I almost need a cc.1835, which would be interpreted as 'very much around 1835' (but this still might not be recognised when exported, so not much use).
I'll probably ask this on the Family Historian Forum too but I thought the question was so general I'd ask here first.
Any thoughts? Thanks.
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Can't pretend to know what is viewed as 'best practice' but I would leave the date as unknown or just a '?' if I have no evidence whatsoever.
Boo
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I usually enter ABT (about) <year no>.
Don't know anything about "best practice".
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I find it helpful to enter my best estimate "Est. 1835" (for example).
This at least gives a starting date to use for further investigation.
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I usually enter ABT (about) <year no>.
Don't know anything about "best practice.
Ditto
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I've often wondered about best practice with this.
If I know the date of a birth event, obviously I have an actual date to record against it.
If I don't have an exact date but do have an approximate year (say from an age given on a census) I can put something like c.1865.
But then what do you put if you have just the name of a Father on an old marriage registration? The son could be one of up to 14 children (I have ancestor families that big) and if none of the other siblings is known, any approximation of the fathers year of birth would be very wide of the mark, even if you assume he was married at age 21.
Hello
If you have a Place of Birth (from the Census), a Father from the Marriage Certificate and an Age from their Death Certificate (or even an approximate Birth Year in the Census), 90% of the time you are halfway there in trying to get the correct Birth or Baptism image of the record, unless it is a very common surname, and in London or other big City.
If you have been getting Death Certificates going backward as well (as the Marriage Certificates you have been getting and Birth Certificates), I would hope that you would get the first Birth or Baptism prior to Civil Registration in 1837 and hopefully get back a bit further still?
Working out when someone dies, checking the Death Certificate details look right and working out where they are buried to see if they have a Memorial stone (a few photos are becoming available online now) and what their Memorial says was just as important to me.
However, it very much depends on how far you want to go back, what kind of budget and time you have available I suppose, as to whether you try and find their actual Baptism or Birth, rather than put an about Birth year and stop there?
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In 1999 I had got back to a place and I had found him in the 1841 Census, got his 1845 Death Certificate saying he was 60 years old.
Twenty five years on, I have collected a massive amount of related documentary material, Wills, his Burial record held in a University Special Collections (not online), some information from newspapers and some held in Archives (some Deed Packs are still with a Solicitor whose client owns the building upon which my ancestor's buildings once stood), plus other information about him and my wider family by marriage, but never been able to confirm his parentage and my Line before circa 1785!
Mark
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I can tell you what the best practice is when cataloguing a book with no publication date. Maybe you can adapt this a little to fit family history circumstances.
1892 or 3 - one of two years certain
1892? - probable date
ca 1892 - approximate date
between 1896 and 1912
189- - decade certain
189-? - decade uncertain
18-- - century certain
18--? - century uncertain
Presumably the last two are irrelevant!
Previously people had used "n.d." - no date, which was not best practice after 1967.
(Source: Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 1967)
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Thanks everyone. Some very interesting feedback.
BushInn1746 - I posted this question here because it was a general question but my family history is all Northern Irish, so there's no real prospect of getting any information about someone born pre 1864.
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Thanks everyone. Some very interesting feedback.
BushInn1746 - I posted this question here because it was a general question but my family history is all Northern Irish, so there's no real prospect of getting any information about someone born pre 1864.
Quite untrue. Yes, there was no civil registration of births before 1864 but there are MANY other records that can give a fairly accurate date of birth.
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Not sure there is a best practice. This is what I do -
I found that having unknown or no date of birth meant that I would have to look at a number of people with the same name to find a particular one, this got tedious. So I now put in c.1820 or whatever, and a place of birth even if it is as general as Scotland. This gives me context for people taken individually as a list of names to look through even if it is only very approximate. I put in the description field how I have estimated the date of birth, eg. "date of marriage", "age at death", "parents date of marriage", "mother's age".
Sometimes these are +/- a year, sometimes up to twelve years or so, but given that I have many names that are repeated multiple times due to Scottish naming patterns I find it necessary and useful.
I would love it if there were more forms of approximation for dates but circa or about are the only ones that seem to be universal. My main program FTM gives me a few more such as between and before, I do use them but they don't upload correctly to Ancestry.
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OK, fair enough but I did say "no real prospect", meaning no real prospect for me.
There may be many other records but it's highly unlikely that I will have the inclination to dig them out.
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Thanks everyone. Some very interesting feedback.
BushInn1746 - I posted this question here because it was a general question but my family history is all Northern Irish, so there's no real prospect of getting any information about someone born pre 1864.
Quite untrue. Yes, there was no civil registration of births before 1864 but there are MANY other records that can give a fairly accurate date of birth.
Agree with this. I note that OP says later there is no real prospect for them, meaning they, as a person, are not likely to want to do this. Not sure why???? Happy to help if they change their mind.
I've done much searching in Ireland. My ancestors are a bit shy in showing themselves but I have got a few generations further back than my mother did (in the times of money orders and sending for certificates).
I'd have to say a more varied and wonderful set of records I've yet to encounter anywhere else.
Of course sometimes it is not a straight-line dig back in linear fashion but to me that is not what this hobby is all about.