Indexing a record where only the spouse's or parent's name is listed

Ted Boren

I'm reviewing Swedish batches where the deceased person is not directly named, but rather is identified in relation to another person, often the father or husband. For example, the first row reads "Lindberg Johan cook". Straightforward enough, but the second row is "Lindberg Johan cook widow":

If left to my own devices, I would list the woman's husband's last name (she was his widow, even if patronymics of the time might not have given her her husband's last name, at least it's a link), and left the first name blank, then in the title for the deceased person list out the husband's name and occupation as well as the woman's designation as widow.

Similarly, a row might read "Lindberg, Johan kock barn" (Lindberg Johan cook child -- the child of a cook named Johan Lindberg.) Can I assume the father's name applies to the child? (Again, naming conventions might suggest the name would be Johansson or Johansdotter rather than Lindberg, but even this could be handled with "Lindberg OR Johansson OR Johansdotter" with the first name blank.)

But the project instructions suggest otherwise:

Swedish: "Om en rad lämnats tom eller om det specifika namnet på den avlidna personen inte var upptecknat hoppar du till nästa rad. Markera varken uppteckningen som tom eller indexera någon annan information om personen i inmatningsområdet. Till exempel, om det i kolumnen för den avlidnas namn står ”hustru till Jakob Anderson”, men namnet på hustrun inte anges, ska du inte indexera den här personen eller någon information om henne."

English: "If a line is left blank or the specific name of the deceased person was not recorded, skip to the next line. Do not mark the record as blank or index any other information about the person in the input area. For example, if the column for the deceased's name says "wife of Jakob Anderson," but the name of the wife is not listed, do not index this person or any information about her."

It's a slightly different case, but seems to apply ... but the indexer has indexed many such rows as I suggested above, and it feels wrong to just delete all that work when it could lead to discoveries. In some cases a batch of 20-30 records would be reduce to just 5-10, leaving children and wives unindexed, often without the husband or father on the same record.

So can someone confirm that the right thing for a reviewer to do is to delete all those if the indexer identified wives or children in these cases by last name only?

Batch name is Sverige, Stockholm—Register till kyrkoböcker, 1546–1927 [Del 8][MS4F-6JS]. It's a common problem in reviewing this project.

Susan Ann Mullen

In the Field Help, Deceased 's Surname, second bullet point from the bottom, we read: "Do not assume a surname from the surnames of other relatives mentioned in the document where the name of the deceased is not specifically recorded."

Notice it said 'in the document'. I am just not seeing anywhere that we can draw the conclusion that we can index the wife or son's name when it is not given specifically for them. I tried but just can not find anything to justify indexing their surname.

It is not hard to see what is in the contract. It's instructions are in the Project Instructions and in the Field Help.

Dellory Matthews

The completed index and links to digital images for this project will be freely accessible online to the general public when the collection is published. The index is provided to direct patrons to the image, where they can view all additional information on the image as part of their genealogical research.

This knowledge article is similar to the project instructions:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-index-individuals-whose-names-were-not-fully-recorded

Melissa S Himes

I think you index every line since the burial dates are different for each individual. You also index the names since there are ditto marks. The second example show the title/occupation indexed as brukspatron: barn

The instructions say:

• Copy names and occupations or titles from one individual to the next only if there is a clear ditto mark ("), sign of repetition, or if the surname is listed only once for a group of individuals under the surname. Do not copy names or occupations or titles if there is a dash (—) or blank space. You may, however, copy the volume number from one entry to another until a new volume number is recorded even if there is a blank space on the following entries.

Clearly there are "clear ditto marks" for the names, so I think you would index Entry 2 as

Surname: Lindberg

Give Name: Johan

Title: kock änka

and then the burial date and page number as the indexer has done.

for Johansson dräng, I think I would follow the example and put that in the Title/Occupation column as well.

I don't see how you can know from this form that these are even the same families. Maybe they are just individuals with the same name. Petter LIndberg for instance, a house servant, a janitor, and a wood carrier - 3 people with the same name buried in 1733, 1744, 1745 - do we know if they are even related in any way?

Just my two cents as another volunteer...

Ted Boren

Thank you both for your responses. My understanding is that project instructions over-ride general instructions. It would be extremely helpful if someone with authority would reconcile the project instructions and general instructions I post below. Otherwise, I will be deleting up to 75% of an indexer's work per batch. Or... more likely I just won't review these records.

Project:

"If ... the specific name of the deceased person was not recorded, skip to the next line. Do not mark the record as blank or index any other information about the person in the input area. For example, if the column for the deceased's name says "wife of Jakob Anderson," but the name of the wife is not listed, do not index this person or any information about her."

General:

• If a family member was referred to but the person's name was not given, do not index information for the individual. For example, if a document says, "Frank Smith and mother" or "Frank Smith and brothers," index only Frank Smith. Do not assume that the mother or brothers shared the same last name as Frank Smith, and do not create any additional records for the mother or brothers.

The problem is that by the project instructions I shouldn't index "Frank Smith" at all here. He has not died, and the record is not about him. The result is that family members will NOT be directed to the record image to explore it (as Dellory suggests), because no one in the family will have been indexed on the image.

Melissa S Himes

That is confusing. Hold on to your batch a bit longer.

The project instructions also say

• Copy names and occupations or titles from one individual to the next only if there is a clear ditto mark ("), sign of repetition, or if the surname is listed only once for a group of individuals under the surname. Do not copy names or occupations or titles if there is a dash (—) or blank space. You may, however, copy the volume number from one entry to another until a new volume number is recorded even if there is a blank space on the following entries.

The batch has those ditto marks.

Let's tag some more moderators so they all can convene and provide some additional assistance. @CJohns7 @annewandering @AndLinda @Mirevo @PiperTWilson

Thanks in advance, Mods.

PiperTWilson

My calling is to community, not family history. I'm afraid I can't offer any help here but thank you for thinking of me, Melissa!

Susan Ann Mullen

Problem we as indexers run into is that we tend to be researchers at heart. We like to figure out what the answer is and record that answer. That really isn't our job. As a reviewer you are doing a great job of wanting to do the very best job you can do. That is appreciated. Now on to your questions .

• In the first bullet point in What to remember about this project, we read: "The completed index and links to digital images will be freely accessible online to the general public when the collection is published. Not every field that is available on the image will be included in the project. The index is provided to direct patrons to the image, where they can view all additional information on the image as part of their genealogical research."

Now as far as to what to include in our indexing fields we find in the instructions:

Field Help, Deceased's Surname, bullet point 6: "Do not assume a surname from the surnames of other relatives mentioned in the document where the name of the deceased is not specifically recorded."

• Project Instructions, What to Remember about this Project, bullet point 4: "If a line was left blank or the specific name of the deceased individual was not recorded, skip to the next line. Do not mark an entry blank or index any other information about the person in the data entry area. For example, if the deceased name column said "wife of Jakob Anderson" but the name of the wife was not given, you would not index this individual or any information about her."

Melissa S Himes

I fully appreciate that many indexers and reviewers cannot take off their researcher caps, but, this really isn't about doing someone's research. This is about whether to delete 17 entries on a review!

What I am gathering from the original post is that Ted is wondering if only those with a specified given and surname are indexed. (I will italicize and bold for emphasis why I think this is a question of whether to delete indexed data).

The original post is asking:

"the indexer has indexed many such rows as I suggested above, and it feels wrong to just delete all that work when it could lead to discoveries. In some cases a batch of 20-30 records would be reduce to just 5-10, leaving children and wives unindexed, often without the husband or father on the same record.

So can someone confirm that the right thing for a reviewer to do is to delete all those if the indexer identified wives or children in these cases by last name only?"

If I am understanding your post, @Ted Boren , on the shared batch, you would delete all the records that have ditto marks or dashes for the names, leaving only 12 records. If that isn't what you are considering, perhaps you could point to a few you would delete.

In my opinion, the indexer for this batch is correct on what they indexed based on the instruction:

• Copy names and occupations or titles from one individual to the next only if there is a clear ditto mark ("), sign of repetition, or if the surname is listed only once for a group of individuals under the surname. Do not copy names or occupations or titles if there is a dash (—) or blank space. You may, however, copy the volume number from one entry to another until a new volume number is recorded even if there is a blank space on the following entries.

I think the reviewer would be wrong to delete these 29 indexed records down to those 12 specified names that are typed. There are clear ditto marks under the names as signs of repetition.

But, the reviewer does need to enter the correct entries for Occupation and Title (i.e., kock änka, or kusk: barn) as shown in Example #2 and the field help:

"Type the occupation or title as it was written.  This information may be found under the column titled "Titel." This column may contain titles, terms, and/or occupations. All of this information may be typed in this field.  Do not include other relationships or information about graves, cross references, or other non-related information in this field. Some information in this column may be written with period in between words or abbreviations. When this is the case, replace the periods with spaces. For example, "arb.k.dotter" should be indexed as "Arb k dotter." Other than this exception, do not correct misspellings or expand abbreviations."

There should also be another entry between entry 7 and 8 as one burial was missed, making it 30 indexed records instead of 29.

Ted Boren

Thanks all. Especially Mellissa -- the first part of your response nailed it! It's not about the ditto marks at all; I'm totally using those (not sure how that worked its way into the conversation!). The issue, as Mellissa summed up, is that patrons will NOT be directed to the image to check out the remaining fields because the lines (records) will not have been indexed at all. I will have deleted them, per project instructions:

"If ... the specific name of the deceased individual was not recorded [including not dittoed], skip to the next line. Do not mark an entry blank or index any other information about the person in the data entry area. For example, if the deceased name column said "wife of Jakob Anderson" but the name of the wife was not given, you would not index this individual or any information about her."

So instead of entering: "Lindberg, <blank>, Johan Lindberg's widow" I will enter nothing. Not Johan. Not his widow. No one. So descendants will NOT find the image and look for other relevant information. Often no other member of the family is indexed on the image. The widow will be invisible; same for the children who die young. That's an unnecessary tragedy IMO.

My hope is that someone will clarify the project instructions in a way that will allow "Lindberg, <blank>, Johan Lindberg's widow" to be indexed. That's valuable, it's accurate, it's not an inferred relationship or uncertain (with the exception of patronymics in older records--which wouldn't apply in this case, anyway because Lindberg isn't a patronymic).

Ted Boren

Also -- someone must write the project instructions. How do you reach that person? I appreciate all the perspectives, but really I think this is a deficiency in the instructions and would love to talk to that person.

Ted Boren

Piper noted that my screenshot didn't upload. I don't have the screenshot anymore :-\

But here's another one with similar issues, with the exception that in this case the husband/father is also named in the record, so the consequences of leaving out the children and spouse are lower (because someone looking for the father/husband may run into the other family members:

First line is:

Deijenström Petter uppsyningsman [overseer]: barn [child]

So it's Petter's child that is being buried, not Petter. Same for the next row, and the next, where we even know the child is a daughter. The rules say not to index these lines, nor all but two of the other lines on this record. (Petter himself on line 4 and Count De la Gardie on the second to last line).

You could argue that family members in these 2 cases could find the children and wives because the husbands and fathers are on the record. But not for Wilhelm Dein (a rider). His burial is not recorded on the page, so researchers won't find him or his child, even though the child IS listed on the page, just not by first name. (Unless we indexed the row as the burial of the child.)

Ted Boren

Screen Shot 2022-03-12 at 09.18.png

Melissa S Himes

Hello Ted. I am confused by the post. Why do you think that everything on that image would not be indexed? We type what is on the form as we are creating an index of what is on the image, not what we think the record means. Researchers would find the record for Wilhelm Dein's child because we created a record of what is on the image. The researcher can determine the rest. Perhaps one day they will find another record of Wilhelm's grave with an unnamed child buried there and the pieces will fall in place. But, if you don't create a record, or delete one in a review, they cannot find the record on a search because it isn't searchable. You don't leave out anyone, except those with cross-referenced names or when the deceased name column says "wife of Jakob Anderson". On this image, the deceased name column does not say "daughter of Petter Deijenström". Thus you index Petter's Given and Surnames based on the fact that there are ditto marks in the deceased name column, and then the occupation.

The daughter would be indexed with her Father's Given and Surname and the occupation as

SN: Deijenström

GN: Petter

Occupation: uppsyningsman: dotter

Burial (Year) (Day) (Month): 1738 14 Feb

We would index the Dein Child as:

SN: Dein

GN: Wilhelm

Occupation: ryttare: barn

Burial (Year) (Day) (Month) : 1734 21Maj

The next line would be

SN: De La Gardie

GN: <blank>

Occupation: greve: barn grevinna

Burial (Year) (Day) (Month): 1720 4 Apr

The last 2 for the De La Gardie's would be indexed, the occupations would be greve and riksråd: 2 barn with respective burial dates noted. You would only need to create one record for the last entry even though it shows two children are buried on 1722 13/8. The researcher will see that there are 2 barn.

According to the instructions, the only time a record isn't created is if it a cross referenced name and there is no burial information, like on this example:

https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/images?fs-cache=true&key=idx-deepzoom-image&image=399926e5-0873-486f-95e9-8fc312172776

Notice on this batch the indexer has entered 28 lines and recorded the repeated information (ditto marks) and the occupations noting they are the children, widow, or wife. On the entries where there is a dash, they have correctly rendered the Given Name fields <blank>.

https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/6f18d246-cb56-45fe-abd5-2e40cbdf7619

*Copy names and occupations or titles from one individual to the next only if there is a clear ditto mark ("), sign of repetition, or if the surname is listed only once for a group of individuals under the surname. Do not copy names or occupations or titles if there is a dash (—) or blank space. You may, however, copy the volume number from one entry to another until a new volume number is recorded even if there is a blank space on the following entries.

Ted Boren

@Melissa S Himes because the project instructions suggest so. I am requesting someone in authority to review the project instructions and clarify. From the original post:

Swedish: "Om en rad lämnats tom eller om det specifika namnet på den avlidna personen inte var upptecknat hoppar du till nästa rad. Markera varken uppteckningen som tom eller indexera någon annan information om personen i inmatningsområdet. Till exempel, om det i kolumnen för den avlidnas namn står ”hustru till Jakob Anderson”, men namnet på hustrun inte anges, ska du inte indexera den här personen eller någon information om henne."

English: "If a line is left blank or the specific name of the deceased person was not recorded, skip to the next line. Do not mark the record as blank or index any other information about the person in the input area. For example, if the column for the deceased's name says "wife of Jakob Anderson," but the name of the wife is not listed, do not index this person or any information about her."

It's a slightly different case, but seems to apply ... but the indexer has indexed many such rows as I suggested above, and it feels wrong to just delete all that work when it could lead to discoveries. In some cases a batch of 20-30 records would be reduce to just 5-10, leaving children and wives unindexed, often without the husband or father on the same record.

So can someone confirm that the right thing for a reviewer to do is to delete all those if the indexer identified wives or children in these cases by last name only?

Batch name is Sverige, Stockholm—Register till kyrkoböcker, 1546–1927 [Del 8][MS4F-6JS]. It's a common problem in reviewing this project.

Ted Boren

In other words, "If ... the specific name of the deceased person was not recorded, skip to the next line. Do not mark the record as blank or index any other information about the person in the input area."

I don't like this rule any better than you, but that seems to be the rule. I'd like it changed or reaffirmed.

Melissa S Himes

I'm sorry that I can't be of better help to you, Ted. I suggest that you don't review this project until you have the rule "changed or reaffirmed". It is indeed a real shame to delete all that work.

Clearly, the project instructions tell you to

Copy names and occupations or titles from one individual to the next only if there is a clear ditto mark ("), sign of repetition, or if the surname is listed only once for a group of individuals under the surname. Do not copy names or occupations or titles if there is a dash (—) or blank space. You may, however, copy the volume number from one entry to another until a new volume number is recorded even if there is a blank space on the following entries."

Hopefully, someone in "authority" can confirm whether one should index the names with ditto marks, or should delete all the information and only index the men in these records. I will tag the only people I know that might be able to help and perhaps they can tag others. @Dellory Matthews @annewandering @Mirevo

To make it a little easier, here are three review batches you can view:

https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/6f18d246-cb56-45fe-abd5-2e40cbdf7619

https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/f2332fed-629e-4625-8fc4-9cc3f0f5a058

https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/fc5d7eff-ee80-4fbc-8f4d-068504b42b35

Susan Ann Mullen

In the end we are going to have to go back to the fact that the owner of the project contracted with FamilySearch to index this in a particular way. The contract is that we do not index names where the entry includes lines similar to this. "wife of John Peterson' even if other information is included.

Owner's wishes will always prevail in records we index.

Melissa S Himes

@annewandering It only says to skip the record if that information "wife of John Peterson" is in the Deceased Name Column. Would someone please confirm this with Indexing Operations? Or do you have access to this contract, Anne?

The project instructions say that when there are ditto marks to carry the names forward. Deleting all these records will be a huge disservice to researchers. Obviously, there are indexers that are entering the data for 28 rows on most of these pages - I've provided 3 examples.

Melissa S Himes

It has ditto marks on the image. I do not know any other way to explain this project instruction. We definitely are able to use those to index the given, surnames, and occupations. You aren't assuming anything - they are clear signs of repetition.

Copy names and occupations or titles from one individual to the next only if there is a clear ditto mark ("), sign of repetition, or if the surname is listed only once for a group of individuals under the surname. Do not copy names or occupations or titles if there is a dash (—) or blank space. You may, however, copy the volume number from one entry to another until a new volume number is recorded even if there is a blank space on the following entries.

Ted Boren

Yeah, I don't think dittos are related to this problem. I'm using the dittoed info appropriately.

@annewandering has hit the nail on the head. The project instructions to not index the "wife of John Peterson" (or children) are clear-ish. I just don't like them, especially when John Peterson himself doesn't appear on the record as deceased (so he's not indexed either).

I'll steer clear of these batches because I can't stomach deleting all those rows anymore. I think it would be worth going back to the contract owners and clarifying intent, because the result of this rule is going to be that many women and children are not findable in these batches.

Knowing Sweden, I doubt very much this is an outcome they would like.