birth records
the instructions say not to try to guess someones surname based on others surnames
in the birth records i am viewing it doesnt say the childs surname only their parents
so should i write in the fathers surname as the childsmor leave it blank
also: if i am unsure about a surname do i just need to leave that field blank or is there some special way to mark it
Answers
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When indexing, there's a purple circle with a (?) in it. Go to the child's surname field, then click on that circle. It should tell you whether or not to use the father's name or to mark it Blank. To mark it Blank, when in the field, press ctrl B or click on the first icon with an X in the toolbar. The Project Instructions should tell you the answer also. To find the Project Instructions, click on the last icon in the tool bar. It has an (i) over what looks like a written page.
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It would be better if you share the batch number so that we can see exactly what you see.
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Given the username, I can be pretty sure which project he's working on, and he should mark the child's surname blank. The field help says in part: "Do not assume a surname from the surnames of others mentioned in the document."
As Barbara wrote, you can mark a field blank using Ctrl-B on your keyboard or using the fourth button on the top toolbar.
If you hover your pointer over the button, the tooltip says "Mark the field blank (Ctrl + B )". [Minus the space after the B, but the Community software ever-so-helpfully changes capital B followed by a closing parenthesis into a smiley with sunglasses. Gee, thanks ever so much for saving me the trouble of inserting an actual smiley when I want an actual smiley.]
If you are unsure of only part of the surname, you can use the question mark to represent a single unknown character or the asterisk (*) to represent multiple unknown characters. This is found in the General Indexing Guidelines under "Unreadable Information". However, I find that if I "sit on it" for a bit, the correct reading often suddenly "jumps in". How long that takes is variable, of course, but you do have some time, in indexing.
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thanks! also if i see a date that is obviously miswritten (birth noted down in june 29 but birth date marked as july 26 that same year than i should write the right one in right?)
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None of the date field helps mention errors, but all of the name fields say not to correct misspellings, and the overarching principle in indexing is to type what you see, so I would index the date exactly as written. It's not our job as indexers to determine where the error lies, and the "What to Remember" section for the Hungarian civil registrations says explicitly that "The completed index and digital images will be freely accessible online to the general public when the collection is published", so it's safe to leave that decision to the researcher using the index.
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