* Dade registers, multiple relatives

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Ruth_W
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Dade registers, multiple relatives

Post by Ruth_W »

Any good advice on how to deal with Dade registers where the grandparents (and more!) are often named in association with a baptism? I have made a new 'Associated individual' type as 'Relative', but I wonder if there is any advice, or a better way to do this?
Similarly, I'm going to be tackling Quaker marriages soon, with the list of all the witnesses - virtually the whole of a close-knit community. Is there any advantage/disadvantage to adding them to the file as new individuals?
Obviously, I will enter the full transcript for these entries, but I would be interested to hear from others' experience.
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tatewise
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Re: Dade registers, multiple relatives

Post by tatewise »

Why not add Fact Witnesses with the Role of Relative or Attender, similar to the many Roles associated with Marriage and Burial (Attender, Mourner). Baptism already has several Roles.

On the assumption that a Quaker close-knit community will be closely related, I would be tempted to create Individual records for them all.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: Dade registers, multiple relatives

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

If I understand Dade registers (and I envy you having the wealth of detail they provide) the grandparents were not necessarily present at the baptism. I'd be inclined to include them in the source transcript, and add them if necessary as individuals in the file (you may need to link them manually as I don't think AS will do it) but not as witnesses unless you want the birth of a grandchild to show up in narrative reports.

Re the Quaker marriages, I'd include them in the source transcript, but whether I created individuals in the file would depend on how widely I was casting my net. If it's a really close-knot community where they're likely to show up as relatives sooner or later, I would create records; otherwise, I'd add them as 'name only' and handle the ones that turned up as relatives on a case-by-case basis.
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tatewise
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Re: Dade registers, multiple relatives

Post by tatewise »

The term Fact Witness is potentially misleading and the FH Help says:
A person who is involved in an event (or attribute*) in a non-principal role, is called a witness. The term witness should not be taken literally. As used in this context, it really just means - anyone involved in a non-principal role in an event. It is convenient to have a term that covers such people, and witness is the commonly-used term. A fact that has one or more witnesses associated with it, is sometimes also called a Shared Event.
A Fact Witness does not necessarily attend the event but may simply be an associated person.
e.g. The standard Will Event has Fact Witness Roles for Executor, Heir & Beneficiary who may not attend the Will signing, and similarly the Probate Event has the Role of Beneficiary.

In How to Cite Sources for Relationships the FH Help suggests the Roles of Father, Mother or Parent for a Birth Event so that Sources can be attached to the relationship even though the father may not attend the birth.

If the Fact Witness association is not required in a Narrative Report then the appropriate Sentence Template can be customised to say nothing.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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AdrianBruce
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Re: Dade registers, multiple relatives

Post by AdrianBruce »

I work similarly to Helen's suggestion - there were several Cheshire churches that recorded extra details of relationships with baptisms and burials for varying lengths of time, for my relatives.

If you are going to get into citing sources for relationships, then the extra relatives should be recorded as witnesses - otherwise I'd just add them in as parents of the parents (citing the baptism etc source for their existence, names, residences, whatever you get out of it). Adding a witness role otherwise seems pointless - just because they can be considered witnesses, doesn't mean that they should be.

Incidentally, the extra data on these registers can be hugely helpful - but be wary of errors. I know that I've got baptisms for 3(?) siblings - all 3 contain slight differences in grandparents' details! More data implies more errors! And the usual warnings about accuracy in death or burial records apply - you're reliant on grandchildren knowing about their parents' parents.
Adrian
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Ruth_W
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Re: Dade registers, multiple relatives

Post by Ruth_W »

Thank-you for your input. You make a good point that the grandparents, etc were not actually (necessarily) present, so perhaps just include them in the transcript. (you are right in the value of such records - I didn't make much progress on this line for many years - Wilson, vague date of birth, out of my area, nothing online in those days ... then boom! several generations in a few hours in Skipton library :D )

I am tempted to add all the Quaker witnesses - they did inter-marry, not only as a close Quaker community, but also a close and static geographical community - but I might go through them first to see the relationships I can identify.
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