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Proposal to improve birth-dating in genealogy

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    Proposal to improve birth-dating in genealogy

    Calling all genealogists and family historians:

    Take my 3G Grandfather, William WATSON: baptised 3 April 1785, Sedlescombe SSX England; birthdate and birthplace unknown. In such cases, Reunion's "CUSTOM DATE" facility allows me to ACCURATELY record his birthdate and birthplace as ≤ 3 April 1875, Sedlescombe SSX; the "≤" serving to qualify both the date and the place.

    (This notation is surely superior to giving his birthplace as Sedlescombe SSX England* and his birthdate as 3 April 1875*; or via such misleading approximations as 1875, April 1875, bef April 1875, ca 1875, etc.)

    Thus, to my question: If this proposal is not already an accepted genealogical standard, why don't we make it so? Then Reunion could continue its world-leading offerings by including "≤" and "≥" in its ROUTINE dating procedures!

    PS: Critical comments most welcome

    * Widely recommended but misleading!
    SURNAMES - UK, AUS: Bourne Boyd Bull Corderoy Hicks Hyland Littley Mackie Stewart Stone Watson

    #2
    Re: Proposal to improve birth-dating in genealogy

    Whilst I can see considerable merit in the general suggestion; and with the greatest respect to everyone concerned, one lone software development organisation and the relatively small number of users of that developer's software (in comparison to the major players, which concentrate more on the Windows software market) are not in a good position to try to impose changes in existing internationally accepted standards. If one developer did choose to go it alone, then they would, of course, also risk losing significant market share as they would be potentially limiting even further the accurate transferability/sharing of user data between their own application and any other genealogical software, internet sites etc., unless they also build in some rather complex import/export routines to allow for any differences between their own format and the only accepted standard for genealogical data transfer that does exist.

    Currently, the most appropriate place to question genealogical data standards and make suggestions would seem to be with the FHISO - http://fhiso.org - as I understand most of the key Genealogical Study Organisations and Software Developers are involved in one way or another with that organisation, since the LDS no longer has any direct interest in continuing to maintain/develop the stagnant GEDCOM Standard. However, as the FHISO seems to have been talking about its own organisational structure and gathering miscellaneous viewpoints for the best part of 6 years, when it will actually get down to entering into genuine and practical discussions on its main objective is anybody's guess! Perhaps that, in itself, substantially explains one major difficulty in getting any form of agreement on change.

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      #3
      Re: Proposal to improve birth-dating in genealogy

      Originally posted by mjashby View Post
      Whilst I can see considerable merit in the general suggestion ...

      ... substantially explains one major difficulty in getting any form of agreement on change.
      Many thanks for this comprehensive and very helpful reply; much appreciated. It convinces me to maintain (for now), the widely- and Reunion-accepted (and hardly-ever misleading) 'bef'.

      That is, taking my 3G Grandfather, William WATSON, baptised 3 April 1785, Sedlescombe SSX England; birthdate and birthplace unknown: His birth info is "bef 3 April 1785, Sedlescombe SSX England".

      With my thanks again; Gordon
      SURNAMES - UK, AUS: Bourne Boyd Bull Corderoy Hicks Hyland Littley Mackie Stewart Stone Watson

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        #4
        Re: Proposal to improve birth-dating in genealogy

        This issue is always a problem where the parish register has recorded the baptism date but not the birth. As a matter of practice (for me), where this occurs, I populate both fields with the baptismal date, knowing that the birth is usually (and probably) only days before (though I have one where he baptised himself aged 33!).

        The reason I do this is so Reunion will generate an age. This is not a practice I would recommend generally, but it works for my purposes; and is better than having no age at all, and is likely to be close in 99% of cases.
        Karl Craig
        Brisbane, Australia

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          #5
          Re: Proposal to improve birth-dating in genealogy

          This might work in many areas, but if you're working with Irish records from the early to mid 1800s, this could be a problem. During his time, the Catholic Church was banned and the priests were in hiding. They would travel when it was safe, which might mean a year or more between visits. They would then baptize any child born since the last priest came around. I solve this by showing the birth date as "before (baptism date)." This enters a date in the birth field, but helps explain why you might have an individual baptized in say 1814, but appear as a parent in 1827, both being church records.

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