South Africa - Membership Registers - How to find Event entries
I am reviewing: South Africa—Dutch Reformed Church Registers, 1660–1970 [Part C][M36F-LFP].
The Project Instructions for "How to Index a Membership Register" show that the Field entries for Event Day, Month, and Year are taken from the column: Aangekom/Waneer.
However, the Field Help for Event Day gives a different example that shows the Field entry for Event Day is taken from the column: Waneer/Voorgesteld.
The owner of the Project needs to explain what an Event is and how to determine the appropriate column on the Image to find the Event date information.
Better examples for Event dates should be selected.
I have Reviewed 1350 Records of all types from "South Africa—Dutch Reformed Church Registers, 1660–1970 [Part C]". When Reviewing Membership Registers, if the column "Aangekon/Waneer" was empty or not found, I have entered Blanks for Event Dates. I was confident I was correctly Reviewing that type of Records. Then, today, I looked at the Field Help for Event Day and stopped Reviewing the Batches. Have I been wasting my time or making others have to go in and correct my work?
Contacting a real person for assistance, by making appointments, has not worked for me. Now, when I stumble over Indexing questions, I just pick myself up and either stop working on that type of Batch or I guess what to do and continue on, knowing that someone else may have to correct my work. I will not Review any more Membership Registers until it is clear what the Event is and where to find it.
Answers
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Hi!
I just commented on a previous person's questions about the Dutch Reformed Church records and about finding answers. Look at it and maybe that will help you too. They asked the questions on December 10th (I believe). I just posted a comment today, December 12th. If you can't find it, let me know. I hope I will remember to look back here!!
Marilyn Jones
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Bryan, I'm also working on the indexing and reviewing of these records (South Africa—Dutch Reformed Church Registers, 1660–1970 [Part C][M3X3-578].
I am a South African citizen and have a good understanding regarding the records. These pages is just an index of surnames, dates, places, BK numbers (book numbers) and Bl (bladsy nommers), (page numbers).
I cannot see how it can be indexed, because there is no info of the person, other than what is stated on the top line. What makes sense to me is, if we can go to the page numbers on the right hand side, look up the person's name and last name. Only then we will be able to have all the details of the person, to work on.
I don't know what Marilyn Jones commend was on the 10th of December. Can you please help me and send me her answer and I am interested in what you think of my comment.
Regards
Hester Korff Wolmarans
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The project instructions state clearly:
Just to show you that this is the correct way to do it, but there was a discrepancy between how I see it and how others see it in the past. I don't know if these entire batches are just index pages going from A to Z, if that's the case, why not take the batches away, it is time wasting. I will ask the same question/statements to the famisy search help as well.
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@Hester Korff Wolmarans I also have been indexing/reviewing the SA Dutch Reformed Church Registers since the project began and I recognize your last name from some batches. That is so cool to me. Anyway there is a good conversation currently active regarding these very issues with "Indexes" vs "Registers" in the thread "There is no indication of whether a record is a birth.......". It is regarding SA Dutch Reformed Church Registers and what is correct for EntryType for these current batches of Registers.
Look especially at the posts from @gary_noble and @Mitch Mackrory They have insider information that indicates that the Project Instructions for Indexing Baptisms #3 is incorrect. Gary has emailed someone in FS who can hopefully fix this error. So we should at some point get instructions for the correct way to index these batches. I would encourage you to post your comments on this other thread.
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Hi Mary Rice, can you see what gary_noble has done? I will take my batch as an example to show you:
my Batch: South Africa—Dutch Reformed Church Registers, 1660–1970 [Part C][M3X3-TFM]. He has taken the last info in parenthesis, i.e. [M3X3-TFM) and retrieve the actual source paper to get the correct info. Then he shows us on the other photo in number order, how to index it. This batch in my example is only the index page header that shows you where the handwritten source lies in (like the book number and Bl (page number)
The handwritten source is the actual paper that has to be indexed. Does this make sense to you?
Hester
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@Hester Korff Wolmarans the PI about indexes being NED applies when there is NO DATE, just a book and page ref. If you read the second part of that PI, it says when there is no other information available. These have a name, a place and a date so they must be indexed. The DRC indexing will continue to be a mess because FS does not break them down into manageable types such as baptisms, memberships etc. Instead they are lumping over 300 years of records from all over SA, into huge batches, all from different churches, so different style forms and books. The vast majority do not have the record heading or the town name. These projects should have been handled better and been broken down on a town basis eg George, and a type baptism, so there wasnt all this needless confusion and grey areas
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I agree with bryanjnix that the directions given are not clear enough about what date to index in the record. There is not enough explanation. If there isn't a date under 'waneer' I use the more recent date from whatever column. Maybe that isn't right--there is no explanation regarding when it should be filled with blank. The event is not explained---what event, arrival or departure?? or either? Or the more recent date in all the columns just so the name is connected to a time and a place?
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