Virginia Vital Records

erutherford

Share batch: M3RG-K4F

Would the Female be considered the principal since she is listed first?

KeeJoyceAnn1

@erutherford, thank you for asking for clarification on this matter. It's so great to see you wanting to be totally accurate with indexing these records.

In researching this, I found no clear answer in the field helps, project instructions, or general indexing guidelines. However, I found a Knowledge Article in the Help Center titled, Who is the principal person in a historical record?

It can be found here https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/who-is-the-principal-person-in-a-historical-record

This article lists a few scenarios where who the principal person might be. For a marriage, it says it would be either the bride or the groom.

maryellenstevensbarnes1

Hi@erutherford I've only done a few of these but since the researcher could be looking for a maiden name, I think the Female would be principal --on the other hand, the PI says Indexes are NNED except this one has dates for both banns & marriage date, and the header makes the page look more like a dictionary. When I looked at the PI example, I noticed that sex is not shown as an entry field for indexing so we could assume that the original page will be available to the researcher ---- but maybe not, so I am tagging @Melissa S Himes -- she has lots of history knowledge --- to take a look. And the PI specifically shows how to enter maiden names as part of the surname, both parties are identified as spouses, then again, we cannot be certain the female surname is actually the maiden name - could be a 2nd marriage. I look forward to Melissa's comments :) Have a great day.

Melissa S Himes

Thanks for the tag @maryellenstevensbarnes1

Actually, I hit my goals for indexing and have moved on to other sites where I transcribe historic documents. But, of course, I will always be glad to offer a perspective from what I learned in indexing.

For this question, without seeing the batch since it has been submitted, we were always told that the 1st name would be indexed in the principal person spot and the second name as the spouse. It would be so much easier if they used Spouse and 2nd spouse as titles with that instruction and in the field helps - especially since that is what they do in the EXAMPLE. -sigh- Anyway, all names will be found on a search.

Maiden names play no role in this question. You would only index the surname that is attached to the given name. In other words, if we are indexing a record for the marriage of John Doe and Mary Smith, she is indexed as Given Name: Mary Surname: Smith. We do not assume that females take the surname of the groom.

maryellenstevensbarnes1

@Melissa S Himes Thanks, particularly your response to the question of maiden names. I've learned so much from your willingness to share your love of history - its one of my favorites, too.