Family Historian User Group

Hi all,

My husband has been researching the Grimsby Jewish Community for years and years. Finally, he has agreed to start the analysis phase of the study and start publishing. Yay!

Among many other things, we are flagging people who were members of the community (born, resided, died or were buried in Grimsby) -- Grimbarians.

We are then flagging the Grimbarians as either

- Progenitors: individuals who do not have a Grimbarian ancestor
- Descendants: individuals who are descendants of a Progenitor
- Name TBD: individuals are do not have a Grimbarian ancestor who have no descendants (and therefore are not progenitors)

We've been going back and forth on what to call the third group. I'm currently calling them 'Non-Progenitors' in order to get on with the programming, but we don't like that. We've similarly rejected 'Loners', 'Strays', and 'Orphans'.

I thought I'd throw out the question here to see if anybody has a suggestion.

Thanks,
Shoshana

I would be tempted to call them "Strays"

It's a common term for people who turn up from outside the community for one or more events.

But as you don't like that one, you could simply use "incomer" "member" or similar

Jane,

I, too, am inclined to call them 'Strays', but both my husband and daughter made a face when I suggested it. They both said it makes them think of stray animals.

But, if I get more votes for 'Strays' perhaps my husband will accept it.

Regards,
Shosh

Single-generation? Perhaps a bit longer than desired.

Tongue firmly in cheek: sojourner.

I'd vote for 'Loners', although I realise some of them might have been there with siblings so not strictly 'alone' in family terms.

A "Stranger" appears in many Parish Records indicating someone from an unknown place and/or of unknown origin.

I wanted to clarify a bit more, regarding the kinds of people that are included in this category.

1. People who appear as 'boarders' or 'servants' in the census for a household of known individuals.
2. People who were buried in the Jewish cemetery; may or may not have died in a Grimsby-associated registration district. Sometimes these are infants, so the parents were most probably Grimbarians, and of interest to us, but we have not yet been able to identify them.

You could use that useful catch-all: others.

I agree that 'Strays' sounds a bit derogatory, and does not really match your latest description.
'Others' is a good catch-all that has no unflattering meaning, or alternatively just 'Persons' or 'People'.

Stand-alones?

Are you using "progenitor" with a specifically religious meaning? I struggled with your original question because a "progenitor" to me is any biologically related ancestor, whilst you seem to be trying to define a sort of "earliest identified Grimbarian" or "First Generation Grimbarian" (FGG).

You then have "subsequent generation Grimbarians" (SGG) - do you lose your Grimbarianishness if you are not born/resident/died/buried in Grimsby? Presumably Yes.

You then have 1st Generation Grimbarians who have not (yet) sprogged - Sprogless First Generation Grimbarians (SFGG)?

Or have I not understood the subtlety of your classification?
David

David,

Sprogless... LOL Since I'm not a Brit, I had to look that one up.

I like your suggestion of 'Stand-Alone'. It seems to me to be a neutral designation that captures our intention.

To clarify further, we are currently marking individuals, via a plugin, as follows:

- 'Grimbarian' (born, lived, died or buried in Grimsby), regardless of generation or religion; we use two flags to mark:
----- 'Progenitor' is the FGJG (First Generation Jewish Grimbarian)
----- 'Stand-Alone?' is a Sprogless First Generation Jewish Grimbarian (SFGJG)

- 'Ancestor' refers to non-Grimbarian ancestors of a 'Progenitor'

- 'Descendant' refers to non-Grimbarian descendants of a 'Progenitor'

- 'Married' refers to non-Grimbarians who married a 'Grimbarian'

- 'Married-Descendant' refers to non-Grimbarians who married a 'Descendant'

We are specifically marking the stand-alone Grimbarians because they are candidates for further research.

Many 'Stand-Alones' were buried in the Jewish cemetery. We assume that they had some familial connection to Grimsby (although there are isolated cases of burials when an individual died in or near Grimby and was buried there for practical reasons).

Other 'Stand-Alones' are people resident in a known Jewish household as 'boarders', 'servants', etc. We are currently making the assumption that they were Jewish (up to 1939, probably true). Again, there could be a familial connection to Grimsby.

I believe that we have covered at least the basic classifications.

Once we get this done, I'll be working on another plugin to generate all kinds of statistics.

I appreciate your input.

Regards,
Shosh

What about "associates", having a similar meaning to the use of the term in FH.

What about 'Resident' of Grimsby, as that is what they were (while they were alive).

Mike, most of the people involved are residents, so it's accurate but not specific.

Has anyone suggested Unrelated yet (as in no known Grimbarian relatives identified yet)?