Another date problem with South Africa, Johannesburg—Cemetery Records, 1840–2019

LarryClark43

www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/ee887f6d-9d33-48cb-a0cc-b3ff9785e74a. M32Y-ZJC

Please look at the first column labeled Date of Burial and the last column on the second page labeled Burial Order Number. The information in the two columns appears to be switched.

I have used the dates in the end column for the burial date would that be acceptable?

As far as I can see there is no other required information on this image, just the name and that date.

LindaCP

@LarryClark43,

Thank you for answering back and pointing this out to me Larry, You are absolutely correct. The date in the far right column titled Burial Order No, while it does not mean Date of Burial, is the Date you need to use as the Date of Burial.

I went and looked back through the filmstrip on this project and found that a long way back, the words Date of Burial are crossed out in the first column and Grave No is written above there.

Then, several pages after that, in the column titled Burial Order No, the words Order No are crossed out leaving only the word Burial.

Prior to that we had an extra column on the left side which was Grave No., then Date of Burial with the burial date written in it in the order which is now in the far right column. Day, Month, Year.

Thank you again for bringing this to our notice so that we can inform others of the proper area for the Burial dates.

Linda

Susan Ann Mullen

Generally we index what we see unless the Project Instructions or Field Help tell us otherwise. The general instructions are:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/should-i-always-type-what-i-see-in-indexing

"Most of the time, you should type what you see on the document you are indexing. Any exceptions are noted in the field helps and project instructions.

 Keep in mind that you are making an index in order to help lead individuals to their ancestors. The individual can review the information on the record image to make a final decision. Consider the tips and resources below as you index:

• Refer to the field help and project instructions.
• Refer to the basic indexing guidelines.
• Use your best judgment.
• Do not assume information that is not specifically given."

Marian McDonald_1

@LarryClark43 could it be that the date in the last column is the record date or the date that the plots were purchased? The burial year would be in the first column.

LindaCP

@LarryClark43,

Thank you for tackling these somewhat confusing records.

The best thing to do in this batch is to follow the Project Instructions, under What to Remember about This Project, bullet point 5 which says:

• The event year may be written just once for multiple records. This date applies to all subsequent records until a new date was indicated.

In this form, the Date of Burial column (on the left side of the form) only contains the year of burial. This year would be used until another year is recorded. Month and Day of burial would be marked <Blank>. The column on the right titled Burial Order Number is not the date of burial. Also, when looking at the Date of Burial column, that year is after the year which would be used if the Burial Order No were the burial date.

Again, thank you for indexing these amazing records.

Linda

LarryClark43

The first column is all sequential numbers not dates. 1890,1891,1892,.......1903,1904; with reopen placed where they reused the plot for another burial. Our brains tell us they are date because of the point the sequence has come to at this page.

If you look at the numbers showing from many pages back on that side you see1081,1082,1083 and that sequence also has reopen placed in between some of the numbers.

It looks like the edge of the page became too tattered to be usable and was shortened by one column.

LarryClark43

LindaCP Thank you so much for checking on this. I appreciate the effort you have made. I will go ahead and submit the batch now.