South Africa—Dutch Reformed Church Registers, 1660–1970 [Part D][M3FV-H82] Dennis Yarrington
Image Name008039078_00030 Batch IDM3FV-H82
I'm reviewing this record of wedding announcements (see screenshot below). It shows the initial announcement on the left and then the three bann announcements on the right, but no marriage date that I can see. the indexer used the initial announcement date as the marriage date and it indexing this as a marriage record. Is that correct?
Best Answers
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Just my opinion, but, the goal is to create a searchable index to get researchers to the images. They can then determine if these are their ancestors and evaluate dates. We can't search on Month and Day, so, it really doesn't matter. The project instructions and field helps say if there is no marriage date, to mark the fields blank.
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I mean that the goal is to create searchable indexes which will allow families to find the original source material. (Actually, I would consider this image a secondary source, since it isn't an actual marriage license or certificate). The families will be able to look at the collection and make their own determinations about the information they find. It will be up to them to learn what it's about.
For example, if I only knew that my great-grandparents were married in 1852, now perhaps I would learn the month and day of their marriage from this image. But, the only way I would find it is because some wonderful indexers did their best to get those names in a searchable index for me to find!
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Answers
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Dennis, this date on the left is the day that the person had written in the book. I have the same problem and have asked Gary Noble about it.
I even typed some of the persons on the list on another website and some of it proofs the persons were married, but on a different date than in the first column.
Hester
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So do we index this type of record or not and if so what date do we put?
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in my view it can't really be the marriage date, because the last bann dates was later in May (and the banns were usually published prior to the wedding-right?)
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If you look on the page on the right on the end, you will see three columns with month names (abbreviated). Those dates were the announcements prior to the wedding date. It is for the porpoise of, if anyone might have any objection for the marriage to take place.
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But, no where in these project instructions does it say to use bann dates for the marriage date. All the project instructions say is if there is no date, then mark the Marriage Month, Day, and Year <blank>. This isn't unusual. Some owners want the exact dates, not the most recent dates.
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Melissa S Himes
Do you mean the goal is to create a searchable SOURCE for the family to look at?
This is exactly what I am talking about. If this is used as a source on the family's profiles, like the book (picture of Dennis Yarrington March 19) for instance, they wouldn't have a clue what it's about. Or they also might recognize it as just a book of inscriptions used by the church itself, which has nothing to do with members who are not on the board.
Thank you for bringing this up, it is a very valuable point to make.
Hester
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