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Archiver > APG > 2003-10 > 1065212984


From: Ruy Cardoso <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Research Forms
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 13:29:51 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <200310031818.h93IIRB9000574@lists2.rootsweb.com>


These multiple discussions of forms and record copies
brought to mind some of the issues I face in preparing
genealogy databases. I am not a professional
genealogist, but in the interest of furthering my own
research, I have arranged with the FHL to
abstract/extract parish record information for some of
my own ancestral parishes in Portugal.

I say "abstract/extract" because I'm not quite sure
what to call the thing I do. I am interested in being
able to sort and search this database, so I needed to
impose a structure of some kind. Yet I could not
possibly come close to transcribing the tens of
thousands of records I have looked at (coming up on
thirty thousand). I have chosen to ignore some
information in order to save time and endless
repetition. For example, I do not include names of
witnesses to marriages because they are almost always
the same people for months on end (presumably people
who worked in the church).

Take the structure of the marriage database I'm
working on now. It includes fields for the my record
number; film, item, and page numbers; the date of the
marriage; names of the bride and groom; names of their
parents (almost always mentioned in these records); a
widowhood indicator for both bride and groom;
professions (not commonly noted); places of origin
(often a bit ambiguous); and an all-important notes
field. This last field, when used at all, most often
includes information on consanguinity and prior
spouses (who are usually named for remarrying widows
or widowers). If a particularly relevant witness to a
marriage is named, then I include that information in
the notes field as well.

Now I find this structure sufficiently flexible
(because of the notes field), yet it is well-defined
enough for me to sort the data in ways that are
particularly useful (finding all marrying children of
a particular set of parents, for example). Further, I
feel that the database is sufficiently detailed that a
user would rarely need to consult the microfilmed
records themselves, though sufficient information is
provided for those records to be found. Can't a
well-designed form accomplish these same types of
objectives?

Ruy Cardoso

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