United States—Enlisted and Officer Muster Rolls and Rosters, 1916–1939 Date Problem
I am trying to review this batch. M3KN-1BX. The image has no date in the header. The person indexing used the reference images and went to image -1 which has the date of Oct. 31 1918. The Oct roster was prepared by Carleton S Boyce. As you can see, his is the first name on this image.
The problem is that about half way down the image there are two assigned dates, Nov 14 1918 and Nov 15 1918. So the sheet cannot be part of the Oct roster.
If you check ref +1 it is the second page to this image with additional Nov dates.
Reference image +2 is the Nov. roster also prepared by Carleton S Boyce. It is a different format and not part of this image.
What date should be used for this image? Am I making this too complicated?
Best Answer
-
This is a jumbled mess complicated by bleed-through. I've looked at the film around this batch and I believe it is the November 1918 Roster, but the cover page has been shuffled. However, we can't know that for sure from the batch information. Researchers will have to use their best judgment on this, as do we. If you look at the +1 reference image, which is the continuation of the batch page, you'll see, under Losses - Thranum, Luvern B - Died Nov. 1, 1918. That's not a prospective notation (i.e. known in advance) like transfers might be - so this really can't be the October Roster. Also, in my experience with these records, Transfers are noted in the month they actually occur.
I need to mention a technical indexing note: the -1 "header"/cover sheet (misplaced I believe), says "Last day of October 1918). We've recently been directed to index a Ctrl+B on these Rosters when the actual day (i.e. 31) is not mentioned.
Also, as you noted, Larry, the +2 reference image does have a more compact version of the November Roster which pretty much confirms that your batch image is part of the November Roster and not the October Roster.
Having said all of the above, I would either use the October <Blank> 1918. Date as the Military Date (which gets close to the correct roster time frame), and respects what we see (with our "lying eyes") and let the Researchers figure it out, or index <Blank> <Blank> 1918 because of the contradictory information. I'd probably hold my nose and do the former, otherwise, another Reviewer will get to go through this agony (2/7 corrections = 28%>20%).
1
Answers
-
Did the 'assigned' dates (and the additional dates on that +1 image) occur before Nov roster date? If they occurred before Nov roster date (+2 image?) then maybe that's how they recorded assignments up to Nov roster date. If Oct roster date was 31 Oct - then I'd be expecting Nov roster date about 30th (so if that pattern holds then maybe it's ok the Oct roster has dates in Nov).
0 -
What does the -1 or -2 images say, etc? Going back is where I find the majority of my dates. I do make sure they numbers line up with the numbers on my rosters I work on.
0 -
@LarryClark43 I must agree with @genthusiast that since they occurred before Nov roster date (+2 image?) then maybe that's how they recorded assignments up to Nov roster date. I would be willing to say that they will appear on the roster in November 1918 when they will be fully assigned to the unit. So you would index them with the Oct 31st date. When we look at your batch we are unable to access the reference pages, but I think using the date on the October roster is correct.
0
