Genealogical Symbol: backward S

[majm]

Geggled ! (too curious perhaps  )

look at the "break line" .... this is what I am referring to on Mechanical Drawings.  I wonder if the person who prepared the chart had a "drafting" profession perhaps. 



Cheers,  JM

[majm]

And this one

[majm]

And lastly this one

(short break which is perhaps akin to the backwards "S" and long break ie "Z" or "N" are both shown)

[Eleesavet]

Redroger and Ruskie,  thank you for your input.  A question mark for uncertainty.  It could be, I suppose, meaning uncertainty that he was the son of the couple.  If uncertain about date, I think you would put question mark by date.

[majm]

Hi there,

I don't see it as any suggestion of any question at all, rather it is simply a form of draftsman's licence to shorten the lines linking one person to another to then enable the person who drew up the chart to be able to fit all the relevent information onto the one page.   I don't see it as being anything other than the person who drew up the chart trying to set out the tree so that the important information is available on that one 11" x 17" piece of paper.  I doubt if it is an attempt to alert anyone to any illegitimacy re birth.

Hope this helps, and I would be interested to learn if my thoughts for explaining the draftsman's licence re drawing lines has been a help or a diversion.

I note that 11" x 17" sheet of paper is still a standard size sheet and it would be usually known as "B ledger" paper.  It is similar to A3 (11.7" x 16.5")

Cheers,  JM

[Eleesavet]

majm,

Thank you for your full and informative replies.  I found your explanation and diagrams very interesting.  

It is basically a way of NOT leaving a great deal of white space and basically allows for keeping the critical details at a legible scale and the "insignificant" information as small as possible .....

So, my thoughts are that it is a "device" used by the person who made the handwritten chart so that OTHER entries on that chart that were from the same generation are all on the same general "horizontal" area of that chart.

Considering the above quote, it might be helpful to see the full chart.

If your explanation is correct though, it wouldn't seem to indicate a significant lapse of time between marriage of couple and birth of Donald.  Perhaps it indicates a lack of significant information in support of Donald's parentage.

 

(short break which is perhaps akin to the backwards "S" and long break ie "Z" or "N" are both shown)

I agree with you, majm, the short  break is akin to the backwards "S", although the break in the chart looks more pronounced and curved (a slanted question mark (?) perhaps).


Talking of breaks.  Would the break in the chart indicate a severed relationship?

Liz

[Eleesavet]

Hi JM,

I found your explanations to be helpful and certainly not a diversion.  Perhaps the Charter was more akin with draftman's symbols than those used by a professional genealogist. 

It will be interesting to get the opinion of others.

Liz 

[majm]

Hi there,

I am attaching two snips from the image. 

I notice that the “straight lines” are drawn using a ruler as a guide.   In the first one you can clearly see the horizontal (on a slight slant) was drawn first as it has its end point showing.  The drafter then turned his ruler through 90 degrees and lined up to draw the vertical line into that corner. 

In the second one you can clearly see he held his ruler and moved his pencil along the leading edge to make the vertical line, lifting his pencil off the paper making a BREAK and then returning his pencil to the page to continue the line.  He had no reason to move his ruler while drawing that line and allowing for the BREAK.

After removing the ruler he then completed the line with the backward S.  The line is thus continuous.

I see a great deal of thought and planning had been undertaken in setting out the information on the sheet of paper.  The lines are not the main feature and thus ought to be fainter.  The words may well have been written in INK and the lines could be in pencil.   I have looked at several charts in my private family papers prepared by one particular forbear who departed decades ago.  He did not use that symbol as a tool for white spacing his “tabloid” charts.  But he did use break lines when he needed to keep generations in the same horizontal plane.   Perhaps because of my own engineering drawing background I had not thought too deeply as to any genealogy “message” behind those breaklines. 

I think if the person preparing the chart wanted to draw attention to a question of illegitimacy it would not be by using a breakline, it would have been a handwritten abbreviation attached to the particular person’s entry.   I also notice on the sample such things as the use of CAPITALISATION in a particular way, and symbols eg “ <” (earlier than) etc.  I agree that the “l” is the old fashioned long hand way of writing the lower case “l” and that my forebear’s charts used it to indicate where each individual was forund to be “living” in specific years .... eg “l 1863 Sands Pitt  Syd” means to me “in the 1863 Sands Directory for Sydney that person was found in that directory to be living at an address in Pitt Street, Sydney NS Wales, Australia”

PS, have just read both your recent replies after typing this post up.   I think the break line is nothing more than the drafter trying to fit every piece of vital information onto the page.  I doubt if it is making any comment at all about the people themselves.

Cheers,  JM (a drafter for the purposes of earning an income to help provide the funds to keep my addiction to family history at the appropriate levels fit for my comfort).

Cheers,  JM

[majm]

I also think that the ruler may have been held in the one vertical position to draw the line from the horizontal line and also draw in the two lines to make the break line. Thus ALL 3 may have been drawn at the one time.

Thus I think the writing on the chart came first and then the lines were drawn in.  And that has resulted in the chartist realising he may have "mis-aligned" the script position for DONALD born 1821 etc.   I don't see there was any "missing" generation or a time lapse.

Earlier there was some mention about this symbol appearing just ONCE on this document.  I think that is significant too. For me, it shows the effort to "white space" the layout of the page, and yet include all the relevant information. 

There are many conventions in drafting practices (not just in engineering drawings, but in many other professions/disciplines  , eg in 21st century flow charts used by many other disciplines (economists, human resources, OH & S, where lines are contracted.    

When typing reports up to request a "backdraft" (jargon for editing an existing drawing to fix errors and ommisions etc ie to revise the drawing up one revision) I show my requests for inserting breaklines thus

"--- -//- ----" 

Over the decades that I have been involved in this profession, I have not ever been asked "what does that mean" and I have always received the backdrafts "back" with the breaklines correctly inserted with the included MIDDLE line (it is not shown in my request, but I guess I could have typed the request thus

"--- -/\/- ---". 

Conventionally it would be considered to show ignorance of drafting practices if I were to type the backward line, and similarly to forget the required number of '-' and not to get the spacing exactly "so" would also indicate poor understanding of those conventions within the profession.  I am not saying I agree with the conventions, simply that as a female of a certain age I commenced in this profession at a time when females were not exactly welcomed by the many male drafters.

Cheers,  JM