Death Date/Burial Date

DavidG

I recently reviewed a record on Family Search, and noted that the burial date was nearly six months BEFORE the deth date. Is it possible to add a conditional clause in the program to state that Burial date can only be =/> Death date, to prevent these errors. This would 'flag' the error to the patron, before submitting the record

Paul W

I'm intrigued as to what advice experienced indexers would provide on this! I'm always reading that indexers must record data exactly as it has been recorded, so what (in this case) if project instructions are to index both burial and death dates?

I can think of an additional issue which must arise quite commonly: where a burial is recorded as, say, 1 January 1861, but the death shown as 31 December 1861 (obviously meaning a 31 December 1860 death).

Gail Swihart Watson

I would look at the source. If the dates are handwritten, are sloppy, and the indexer was not paying close attention to the data inconsistencies, it would be a simple transcription error. I have a fantastic example of this. Check it out. I first thought the death was in 1919. Then I noted EVERY other date, including burial, was 1921.

Paul W

@Gail Swihart Watson

Indeed, this is an excellent example - but mainly in adding to the confusion of what should be indexed here!

The death obviously is meant to be recorded as "July 26, 1921", but there;s no way I can see how that appears to be the case. Taking things "literally", I would say "19191" has been recorded as the year. There is certainly nothing (to me) that would make me read the recorded date as 1921.

Again, my question to an experienced indexer would be - how would you index the death date for this one?!