Marriage record: male - female
I'm curious as to the logic of not indicating "male" or "female" for a marriage record when the sex is not indicated (doesn't have bachelor or spinster). Instructions state: do not assume sex of a person based on a given name.
It makes sense not to assume the sex by a given name on some records but for marriage it is pretty obvious, well at least back in the 1800s and 1900s! When reviewing marriage records I have to change the sex to "blank" on many because the indexer assumed the sex based on name.
Just wondering!!!
John
Answers
-
I have a cousin named Leslie. He married a woman named Leslie. The point is that how would we know which one fit the information for the groom and which one fit the information for the bride? Sometimes it is not as obvious as we would think!
2 -
For the period these records are in time, **** marriages were not legal. The groom was always listed first and the bride listed second.
0 -
I think the reason being is because it is just better to make it a General Indexing Guideline rather than have folks pick and choose what instructions they want to follow on various projects. But, there will be marriage records where there is a prefix (Mr Mrs Miss) or it will say he/she is of legal age. Then you can determine gender from the language. Sometimes indexers and reviewers don't read all the details and you have to add the gender.
1
