UK, England, Lancashire - question about how to index "wife of..." in a burial record

Ontymay

UK, England, Lancashire—Nonconformist Church Records, 1647–1996 [Part B][MSKW-SKP]

I'm reviewing this batch of burials from 1633 and have a question about the indexing of entries when the deceased is the wife of [husband's name]

For example the 4th line is an entry that reads "ux Richard Greene de Bedford" for 30 June 1633

The indexer has indexed this as the wife of Richard Greene which is correct (shame we don't get to know her name) but has indexed the Deceased's Prefix as "Mrs"

Is that correct? It is implied, since she is a wife and quite helpful for those who don't know that ux is the abbreviation for uxor Latin for wife

many thanks in advance

DHilary2

Hello,

The instructions in the little purple circle next to the "Deceased's Prefix" box specifically say "If prefixes were not recorded or were written as a variation of the word "unknown," press Ctrl+B to mark this field blank.", so as nowhere is "Mrs." written, you would just mark that box blank. I do agree, though, that it would be helpful in many cases if it were permitted to do this!

I hope this helps.

Hilary.

Ontymay

@DHilary2 thanks for your answer

That is my understanding too - but it's not the first batch that has indexed in this way so I'm just checking - and putting some specific information about this issue for anyone who wanders into this forum to get some clarity.

The instructions don't speciifcally say " Don't infer the prefix from marital status" so it is feasible that some indexers would think it was correct to do so

I have seen this done in indexing of batches of later marriage registers where spinster or widow are specified and so the implied prefixed of Miss and Mrs respectively have been entered. You can see the thinking and how that information might be helpful to researchers.

In fact the prefix field is almost always blank which makes me wonder why have it at all.

Have a great day