Family Historian User Group

The Civil Registration Index template in the Essentials collection has a single Name Recorded field, unlike the Certificate template, which has two name fields.

The only rigorous way I can see of using this for a marriage is to have two separate citations for the same event, one under each name, with all other fields being duplicated (apart from the Text from Source, where they would be mirror images).

That appears very clunky to me. If I use templated index sources (and the jury is still out on that question), I would probably create a second name field for marriage so there is just one citation, as I do now for a generic source. An alternative would be to change the field definition to Text, so both names can be correctly listed (as is done in the Monument template). In all these cases, you are assuming that the correct pair of individuals have been identified, so there is no fundamental difference between the various approaches.

What do other users do?

As a GRO Index entry for a marriage has a single name in it, I only enter that name in the source template (with reference and district that's sufficient to find the source again). However I enter both names in the Text from Source.

You can't be sure the reference you've found is the right one even by locating the corresponding one for the other half of the couple (unless you already know the spouse's surname, and even then there's a chance you've got the wrong entry) , but citing the GRO Index twice seems unnecessary, as long as anyone checking your thinking can do the same correlation in the index using the information in your citation.

That’s another option, but aren’t you making the same assumption? It’s probably inherent in any citing of the index, so impossible to avoid.

How do you decide which of the two marriage partners to name? It makes no difference for justifying the citation, but it could impact queries or plugins.

I think I prefer a second name field to introducing an asymmetry into the project.

I have a text field titled Parties that I use in templates for sources where more than one individual is involved such as deeds, marriage records and divorce records, legal case files, etc. Keeping it as a text field allows me to enter multiple individuals in whatever format is needed depending on the source. I have also seen fields titled Persons of Interest.

Mark1834 wrote: ↑

21 Jan 2023 19:19

That’s another option, but aren’t you making the same assumption?

I don't cite the index unless I know enough about the partner (forename and/or surname) already to be confident I've got the right entry AND there's no ambiguity in the index (relevant forename or surname not shared among the potential spouses, for example). And even then, I assess it as Unreliable Direct Secondary Derivative information -- anyone who has read "A Comedy of Errors, or The Marriage Records of England and Wales 1837-1899" by Michael Whitfield Foster is never going to take the indices as gospel

How do you decide which of the two marriage partners to name? It makes no difference for justifying the citation, but it could impact queries or plugins.

Whichever one I searched for. In 20 years, I've never needed to run a query to find Sources; perhaps it's just the way I work. I tend to be 'one and done' with sources -- not revisiting the citation once it's been created, unless I discover an error that means I need to 'rework' a whole individual (in which case I start from the individual). Ask me one day about Samuel Brookes and Samuel Woods Brooks, first cousins born 2 months apart in the same small Nottinghamshire village. One was born just before civil registration came into law, and one just after. Newbie me went 'I've found him in the GRO index! Tick' without tracing the Samuel I'd picked forward to discover him marrying in Nottinghamshire when my Samuel was already married in Staffordshire. As a kind more experienced cousin pointed out when I made contact with her. An early experience in genealogy that taught me to check and double-check before committing an individual or a fact to my tree.

There is another option that ticks a lot of boxes. When I first looked at templated sources way back in FH7 beta testing, I was put off the Civil Registration template as it didn't seem a particularly good fit to all cases where it would be used.

For early birth and death records, everything in the index can be captured in the template fields, so there is no need to use Text from Source at all. However, where do you put mother's maiden name or age at death/date of birth from later indexes? Just that information in the TfS looks silly, and repeating the name(s) is an anathema to anybody with a background in relational databases.

I'll try the approach of just using the Date, Registration District and Reference fields, and recording the rest (name(s), mother's maiden name, age/dob) in Text from Source. It fits all indexes perfectly, for any event and any period, and is analogous to the Census template, where I do not record the Head of Household. It may also be more "correct", as it separates where the source is located from its contents.

Effectively, it comes down to just separating the generic Where Within field into template fields, and leaving the generic Text from Source untouched, which also fits my current work with hybrid sources and converting an existing project.

Mark1834 wrote: ↑

22 Jan 2023 09:14

....
For early birth and death records, everything in the index can be captured in the template fields, so there is no need to use Text from Source at all. However, where do you put mother's maiden name or age at death/date of birth from later indexes? Just that information in the TfS looks silly, and repeating the name(s) is an anathema to anybody with a background in relational databases. ...

Hmm - but if you edit out the repeated bits from the Text From Source, then it's no longer the Text From Source....
I could imagine copying the Text From Source verbatim from FreeBMD but correcting a transcription error in that TFS when it comes to the template name...

AdrianBruce wrote: ↑

22 Jan 2023 13:14

but if you edit out the repeated bits from the Text From Source, then it's no longer the Text From Source....

Text from Source can be an abstract instead of a full transcription. If my source is the Diaries of David John, 1856-1908, I'm not about to do a full transcription, even of the page on which my ancestors are mentioned -- I will do an abstract of the key points; anyone who wants to see the whole thing can go and look online.

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑

22 Jan 2023 14:02

... Text from Source can be an abstract instead of a full transcription. ...

Yes, that would work provided it's made clear that it's an abstract or that it omits the data provided elsewhere.