Genealogical Symbol: backward S

[Eleesavet]

I wonder why he didn't include the symbol in his key.  An oversight or deliberate?

[majm]

Phew, finally got the internet sorted, and now back "on the air".

Firstly, agree, it was not a whitespace issue.    Secondly at the left hand edge of the sheet there's a chronological list.  So, the 1821 DONALD is lined up neatly with the appropriate year.   Thirdly, the years are handwritten in, but the "graph" (in the vertical) seems to be possibly indicating a printed sheet, perhaps commercially produced. 

EDIT TO ADD IF not a pre-printed sheet, then definitely high degree of skilled penmanship....

I can clearly see that the DONALD 1821-86 is the only entry for his generation in that branch of the tree.   So, the question to me is still "what does the chartist mean when using that symbol"... 

While I none the wiser for seeing the whole chart, here's two possibles (yes, one from my family history thoughts and one from my drafting thoughts ....

a) it is a sinister symbol indicating that Donald is the son of Donald and Catherine but the formal marriage records for Donald and Catherine have not yet been found.

b) it is a break line, to show that the chartist is not sure IF that Donald is the eldest child of the Donald 1787-1862 ....  Afterall if he is the eldest child then his father was in his 30's when this child was born....

Alas, I still do not know if Felix is a Cat.  But I too wish we had an RChat smiley to say congrats on attaching.... 


E ... I hope this works



Cheers,  JM

[majm]

I wonder why he didn't include the symbol in his key.  An oversight or deliberate?

I would think it is an oversight,  chartist has labelled the chart in top right hand corner.  Also the chartist has used the ruler to underline the capital headings, keeping with standard drafting practices for "penmanship" I would suggest there's at least High School Pen and Ink Skills, and industry standards for whitespacing considerations (not necessarily in the drafting specific field, but in graphical representation of any discipline, if assigning a mark out of 25,  I would be happy to give 21/25 (setout/layout of the content would be out of 25,  and accuracy of the info would be out of 25, and ability to use only that information to re-produce this in another format (manfacture etc by a trained craftsman) a further 25 ... ie an overall mark out of 100 ) .... 

Eg,the chartist has indicated the - - - -  and [   ] use.  In fact, the - - - - are very evenly spaced and of good proportions to each other and to the "scale" of the page....   There's good use of white space (to give equal emphasis to each detail,  and to separate each branch.   The author has also placed his "c o p y r i g h t" on this specific document simply by his name, place and date in the bottom left hand corner. 

Thus E, perhaps you need to unattach two pages to preserve the copyright.  

And if marking JM on wordsmith skills,  out of 25 ... ummm.... well, less than 12 due to the convulted sentence structures and ....      

Cheers,  JM

[Eleesavet]

Back in the mists of time (1950s) we used a reversed S to indicate a broken lineage.
I.E. The person was descended from another shown person but not directly the intervening generations being missing.
Cheers
Guy

Could the above apply?  If so, what broken lineage?  Is it, as JM suggests, that he is not the first child?  Why would he be the only one of the third generation noted on the whole chart?

I attach the section of the chart showing the symbol and family it connects to.  If you study the whole chart previously posted on this thread,  you will note that this family dates back to the earliest year, and you will see that it is the only family with the third generation noted, in this case DONALD 1821-86.  According to the chart, Donald is the first born to the first born of John Macintosh and Mary Finlayson. 

Was the chartist trying to establish a link between earlier MacIntoshes outside Skye and those on Skye, giving more attention to the earliest family he could find and their first born?  Or is this fanciful thinking?

Another thought, the above Donald's parents are Donald MacIntosh and Catherine MacIntosh (nee MacIntosh) (confirmed by his death certificate on ScotlandsPeople).  Could the symbol mean they were not only his parents but also cousins removed?  Perhaps his parents were cousins removed.

Liz

ps I curtsy in acknowledgement of your applause, JM.
pss I hope I'm not flogging a dead horse here.  Let me know when you want to wind it up.  I dont want to bore you.

[majm]

I am intrigued .... while in that state I cannot ever be bored ! 

[RedMystic]

I wonder why he didn't include the symbol in his key.  An oversight or deliberate?

As this was page 2 of 4, it may be that the key was on page 1. Just a thought - wish I had noticed it while I was at Clan Donald so I could have asked. 

[RedMystic]

EDIT TO ADD IF not a pre-printed sheet, then definitely high degree of skilled penmanship....

It was a preprinted sheet with the scale on the left hand side pre-printed.

It just occurred to me that perhaps it means that one of the subsequent sheets (as this was 2of 4 but I didn't look at the others in my rush - for my OH, the FH bloom had definitely come off the bloom by this leg of our journey ) contains the newest generation.

I've provided E with the name of the Clan Donald archivist who helped me. Perhaps it's time for an e-mail to her.

[Eleesavet]

I have been advised that the attachments (showing the whole chart) in my replies 58 and 61 should be deleted as they are copyright.  Even though they do not have the copyright symbol, his name, place and date make them copyright, and copyright exists for 70 years after a person's death.  The section of the chart showing the symbol, posted in reply 8, will remain.  So perhaps you want to go back and have a final look before I shortly delete them.

Liz

Please ignore the above in the light of Guy's reply no. 75 and mine no. 80.  Liz <sup>(*)


(*)</sup> Moderator Comment: These replies have now been deleted. Please see reply #73

[majm]

EDIT TO ADD IF not a pre-printed sheet, then definitely high degree of skilled penmanship....

It was a preprinted sheet with the scale on the left hand side pre-printed.

It just occurred to me that perhaps it means that one of the subsequent sheets (as this was 2of 4 but I didn't look at the others in my rush - for my OH, the FH bloom had definitely come off the bloom by this leg of our journey ) contains the newest generation.

I've provided E with the name of the Clan Donald archivist who helped me. Perhaps it's time for an e-mail to her.

Perhaps because I became involved in my own family history researching decades before the internet and the "birth" of the popular commercial websites devoted to family history,  I have not ever seen a pre-printed sheet with just the scale on it being promoted for use in family history.    I agree, an e-mail to CD archivist, perhaps with a link to this RChat thread, and (fingers crossed), perhaps that may lead to
a) solving the dilemma (thus establishing if Felix is a cat)
and
b) more importantly, providing a way for the chartist and Eleesavet to make direct contact with each other and share their knowledge of the details of the families that the chartist wrote up.  In that way they can each contribute to the validation process of the info in that chart.

I do note that so far, despite quite a number of posts referring to the use of the reverse S on tree charts, no-one has provided any scanned examples of the reverse S used in charts prepared pre-internet.  So I have had a good look at the work of my forebear who did many charts in the 1930's - 1970's era .... and on the charts that I have here he did not use it.   However, I only have his original charts pertaining to our own shared family trees.  I know he prepared many other charts for many other people who were simply collegues, friends etc.  He was a longstanding member (at times on Management Committees) of various Genealogy Societies, eg the Society of Australian Genealogists (SAG). 

Cheers,  JM