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Archiver > APG > 2005-01 > 1105044896


From: "Mills" <>
Subject: RE: [APG] Biographical writing style
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 14:55:41 -0600
In-Reply-To: <83.1e6c4a2a.2f0ee0ec@aol.com>


Rondina wrote:

< my personal library
contains no extremely detailed resource on writing in the register style and
the
modified register style. I do have the BCG Application Guide and Manual. I
plan to order Henry Hoft's book on Genealogical Writing, but I understand
from
their librarian that it does not discuss the modified register style -->


Rondina, there is no such guide to any such critter as "modified register
style" because there really is no such critter! The term persists only
because it is perpetuated by some computer software that has not stayed
abreast of what's going on in the world of genealogical writing and
scholarship.

For the last quarter century, there has existed two basic "formats" for
compiled genealogy: The NGSQ (used by the NGS Quarterly) and the Register
(used by the New England Historical and Genealogical Register). There is, of
course, no journal named "Modified Register."

You will find both formats treated in the BCG-recommended publication by
Joan F. Curran, CG; Madilyn Coen Crane; and John H. Wray, Ph.D., CG,
*Numbering Your Genealogy: Basic Systems, Complex Families, and
International Kin* (Arlington, Va.: NGS 1999).

As that little book also explains, the term "modified register" aka "record
system" was used in the early 1900s when the NGS Quarterly, the New York G&B
Record, and other journals *slightly* modified the Register Format to make
it more compatible their needs. Over time, the Record went back to using
Register format, making the term "Record format" obsolete.

Meanwhile, NGSQ's format evolved into a radically different system that is
in no way just a "modification" of the Register. The NGSQ System, which some
computer software erroneously calls "modified Register," treats numerous
compilation problems that the Register Format never addressed--numbering
genealogies that follow both American and international lines of descent,
numbering families with multiple immigrants in different generations,
numbering adoptees, &c &c &c.

Meanwhile, also, the Register Format has undergone its own modifications --
making the Register Format a "modified Register" format, as well. In fact,
Tom Kosacheck's guide for NEHGS's Newbury Press (*Guidelines for Authors of
Compiled Genealogies*, 1998) actually recommends modifying the Register
Format to include some features of the expanded NGSQ System -- which would
make the Register Format a modification of the so-called "Modified
Register"!

Are all y'all confused yet? <g>. Obviously, it's a whole lot simpler to
identify things properly: There's the Register Format and the NGSQ System.
Hoff's little book does an excellent job of describing the former. Curran,
Crane, and Wray's little guide covers both.

Elizabeth

------------------------
Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
*Evidence: Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian*
*Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers,
Writers, Editors, Lecturers & Librarians*


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