US, Alaska—Church Records, 1816–1970 [MQGK-6KP]

jamesleeskinner1

In the batch I am indexing with it being death records:

US, Alaska—Church Records, 1816–1970 [MQGK-6KP]

I am wondering what I should put in the "Parents Field" as the name of the record states: "Wife of ____(a person's name)_______. Considering that the record doesn't state the parents name, but the wife of someone instead, what should I put in this field on this specific record? In fact, this is stated several times on the batch I am indexing. I don't know if I should put "wife of (the person's name)" or just leave it blank considering it wouldn't make sense to put that in that field for the death of this person.

erutherford

You will put the spouse's name in the appropriate spousal fields, so Mary's spouse will be indexed as:

Spouse's Given Name: Timothy
Spouse's Surname: Achunakak

The terms "wife", "husband" and "spouse" are used to determine that the person has, or at least had a spouse. Also, all fields are required. If you do not see a field, or nothing is in a field, it will be marked <BLANK>, either by using Ctrl+B or using the 4th field from the left on the toolbar.

jamesleeskinner1

Okay, this name is in the "Parents Field" but on the record it says, "wife of Timothy Achunakak" which doesn't make sense, but would I put that name in that field anyways or keep it blank? I would just expect a first and last name and not "wife of…………..(name).

erutherford

It would be in the spousal fields because it says "wife of". The only use (I guess that word works) for the terms is, depending on the project, that there is/was a spouse, in this case, or to determine sex in the case of Naturalization projects. It is not indexed unless it's called for in the project (marriage applications, usually). If Timothy were Mary's father, it would be indicated on the document, just like Gregory is the father of Irina. There is no "wife of" attached to Gregory's name.

If the field(s) is not there, or the field is blank, then you will mark it <BLANK> by using Ctrl + B or the fourth icon from the left on the toolbar, but do not type <BLANK>.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

@jamesleeskinner1, you can think of that "Parents" label as short for "Parents or Spouse or other nearest relation". This form is full of such shorthands: when the age is in years, the units aren't specified; when the name in the Parents column is the father, it's unlabeled; they didn't bother with ditto marks for the year of death.

In this batch, the "mother" field will be blank on all 134 entries, the "sex" field will be Female on 30 entries and blank on the rest, and either the "father" field or the "spouse" field or both will be blank on all of the entries (that is, there are no entries that identify both a parent and a spouse, and many entries that specify neither).