Marriage banns
Hello al, Im new to this so I hope what I have already done is ok.My question is I now have a couple new lots to do, But they are the marriage banns not the actual marriages. I cant see how to list them as only choice is marriages and these the ones I have opened have the 3 dates.Thank you in advance Tina UK
Answers
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Thanks,Hope what I have done is ok.
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This appears to confirm that indexing projects are still treating banns records as though they referred to the actual marriage ceremony event. It is true that some registers make it clear that the third date does relate to the marriage itself, but in many cases the marriage actually took place in another church, and in other cases was possibly never formalised.
FamilySearch needs to make it absolutely clear where a batch relates to banns or licences, as the current method of indexing often provides false information to its users, as to precisely when and where the marriage (finally) took place .
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That is true @Paul W, but for the purposes of indexing, we do index the most recent bann date on the record. In the case of marriage licenses, if the marriage date is not on the record, then we also have a priority list beginning with the Marriage License Date.
For indexers and reviewers with the same question about marriage banns, we follow the project instructions and don't worry about the end-user (researcher). It will be up to them to view the image and see that it is the date of a bann. Perhaps this will be changed someday, but, for now it is the rule.
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As I have commented in other posts, this is just poor practice and is effectively deceiving the researcher as to the true facts concerning their relatives' marriage. Marriage licences are a greater problem than banns - although banns records still do not in many cases confirm the parish where the marriage took place: possibly not the same one as the indexed event.
If I were the indexer in such a case, I'm afraid I would refuse to work on a batch where project instructions were to record a date and place for a marriage, knowing this not necessarily to be factual.
In the interests of sound genealogy, this "rule" must be changed. After all, how difficult should it be for FamilySearch to have separate categories for "Marriages", "Marriage Licence" and "Marriage Banns"? Other websites seem quite able to cope with the differentiation.
As far as checking originals, surely you know how difficult this can be. I can't imagine how difficult it would be for a researcher living in an isolated location to obtain the original marriage record for a couple who married in certain counties of England.
I am not attacking your comments, Melissa - you are stating the facts honestly. I'm just very unhappy with project instructions / practices of this nature.
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@Paul W I didn't feel you were attacking my comments. I just don't want new indexers to seek out how to do Marriage Banns and find a comment that might lead them to believe that they are providing "false information". Your post is really more suited to the Ideas section than Indexing, since we have no control over the project instructions or the entry fields.
New Indexers and Reviewers just need to know that they follow the project instructions, and in most cases use the third (most recent) date on the banns and the license date when no marriage date is recorded. This is in the field helps and the project instructions.
If they choose not to index these, as you suggest you would do, then they need to click Batch, Return Batch, and choose another project.
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Thank you for your further response. I have been posting my thoughts on this matter for quite some years - previously on the predecessor platform to "Ideas", the getsatisfaction.com website.
Yes, perhaps it was inappropriate to posts comments under "Indexing", but I'm afraid I get so exasperated that such a straightforward matter has not been addressed in all that time.
The worst effect of this (indexing such events as "marriages") is that when a user adds such a source to their relatives' profile(s) in Family Tree, the date (and place) of the earlier event causes any accurately added detail for the marriage ceremony event to disappear from the person pages - with the banns / licence detail being substituted, due to the program always "choosing" the earlier date.
I have had to correct a number of records that other users have unwittingly added, without realising the implications of their actions (i.e., they have replaced accurate information on the person page with the wrong detail).
Indexing is supposed to be an aid in leading researchers to the original records relating to a particular event (e.g. marriage) not to lead them to think it took place on another date, and possibly at a different place - not necessarily even in the same county!
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Yes my thoughts.Banns shoulld be able tyo be listed under this, as no ages/birthdates or parents names .So yes the choice in the pull down menu should list banns seperate to marriages
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The problem I am trying to emphasise is that if these marriage related events (primarily banns and licence records) continue to be indexed as if they refer to the actual marriage, most users will not even know that they are details of these. So, even if there was a "Banns" option in the pull down menu, most users would not recognise the record as relating to banns and still add it as a Marriage.
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yes thats right.But mine had handwritten notes on the side like,married or think few said cerificate,which is now lost.
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I hope that you did index the important information on the image, @tinarendall. I'm only concerned because you wrote "which is now lost". Your post on Nov 16th lead me to believe you did correctly index these with the date of the bann! Did you mean in the above post "would be lost, if you didn't create a record?"
Just for other who may find this in a search for answer on how to index a bann:
We index any record related to a marriage, whether it is a license, a bann, or a marriage certificate - if the project instructions tell us to do so. We look at the field help to see if there is a priority list to index a date if there is not a marriage date.
Why? By having a name and a date indexed, the researcher will be able to find the image through a search. They can see the image and make their own decisions about how to use the information. The only time information is "lost" is when it doesn't get indexed. Then it would take someone searching through thousands of images in hopes of finding the record.
This is why it is so important that we don't confuse indexers by posting things on this Q&A board about one's displeasure with the way we index information. We follow the Project Instructions and the Field Helps. We do not worry about the end-user who may not understand the difference between a marriage date and a bann date. The same applies to baptism dates versus birthdates or burial dates versus a death dates. We follow the instructions.
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You say: "We do not worry about the end-user who may not understand the difference between a marriage date and a bann date". I'm afraid I am really shocked by that kind of attitude. Okay, I respect your frankness about the issue, but the way FamilySearch currently deals with marriage-related projects is plain wrong.
You also state: "By having a name and a date indexed, the researcher will be able to find the image through a search." In some cases this will be true - e.g. if the image is available on FamilySearch or a fee-paying website - but in other cases they will need to contact a record repository (not necessarily identified in a citation reference) in order to obtain a hard copy of the document, or possibly a paid-for pdf version emailed to them.
Again, I would emphasise my criticisms are primarily at the FamilySearch indexing procedures and instructions, which fortunately are not adopted by other websites I use. Rather than much of FamilySearch's indexed material being a research aid (surely the main purpose of indexed records) all the process leads to is an end-result of actually hindering users from finding (in this case) the record of a marriage. As an example, a FamilySearch source tells me my ancestors were married at a particular place on a specified date, but they were actually married somewhere else, sometime later.
I just do not understand the concept of indexing without any real concern about the potential uselessness of the whole exercise. I would continue to encourage indexers only to work on projects that have a worthwhile value on completion.
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Indexers and Reviewers - Please follow the project instructions and field helps, and have faith that this all works to help others find their ancestors.
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