* Monumental Inscriptions - thoughts?

[fhtess65]

Yep, you're right. It was early in the morning when I answered - clearly wasn't thinking with all neurons firing...

For women, it's tricky as I want it to link to her main record, which has her birth surname, but also need to note her married name. I would likely use my own edited source template which would include a note field in which I could mention her surname at death.

But a source/citation identifies a 'document' or other object, not an individual?

[fhtess65]

I should also add that I have real trouble with abstract thinking, so I can't really provide much input until a new version is published and I can try it out.

Thoughts on all of the above would be much appreciated. Of course as always AS will be very flexible and allow for the user to format these as they wish, but I'd like to feel confident I've chosen good defaults.

[Little.auk]

2. Fundamentally, for me, the date is the earliest date when I think the stone was erected. But this can be unclear. Normally I would put something like "After dd/mm/yyyy" where dd/mm/yyyy is the physically first death date on the stone. So if the MI reads "John d.1905, also his wife Mary d.1903", I'd date the stone as "After 1905" because the ordering of the items would tend to imply that the stone was only erected after John's death. (Stands back waiting for people to send in photos of stones with a blank space reserved for the husband followed by a completed inscription for the wife...)

FH7 templates for "Grave markers" and "Memorial plaques" give a guidance note that the "Date" field is intended for the date that the source was "Read or Photographed" - which conforms to the Evidence Explained "QuickCheck" model Grave Marker template (Third Edition Revised. 2017. page 213).

There is no value in an entry like "After 1905" - it is an assumption based on the inscription.

3. Names - surely it's a list of names on the stone? Anything else is a deduction.

I would agree for a gravestone listing multiple related family burials - the source would apply to them all. So, a template similar to the Census template would be needed. However, I would only cite a single name in the source title, as I do for Census sources. I use "Text from Source" to record the full inscription..

However, the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) Boer War (1889 - 1902) Memorial plaque, listing my great grandfather's death, has almost two hundred other names on it. I have a photograph, but I see no value in listing all the names of people whose only association with my g-grandfather is their regiment and theatre of death.

[Gary_G]

I tend to think that the date the monument was imaged has the most overall value. Using the date imaged means that the date can often be extracted directly from the image EXIF. That can be quite handy, as it avoids having to keep extra notes.

[AdrianBruce]

... There is no value in an entry like "After 1905" - it is an assumption based on the inscription. ...

Yes, on reflection I agree with that. The record of the source needs to contain only what is clear from the real-life source. Depending on your point of view and working practices, you may want to record your deduction elsewhere that the stone was erected after 1905 but we need to maintain clear water between our deductions and what's in or on the source. Which means that...

... FH7 templates for "Grave markers" and "Memorial plaques" give a guidance note that the "Date" field is intended for the date that the source was "Read or Photographed" ...

... is the most (only?) sensible use of the date.

It is possible that an inscription may carry a creation date - my GG-GPs' MI in Crewe Cemetery carries such a date because I had it replaced after the original had been snapped off in a storm, presumably by a flying branch. I put the date on to show any future researchers that what they were looking at was not the original. (Yeah and I put my name on the base because modesty only goes so far... )

... the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) Boer War (1889 - 1902) Memorial plaque, listing my great grandfather's death, has almost two hundred other names on it. I have a photograph, but I see no value in listing all the names of people whose only association with my g-grandfather is their regiment and theatre of death.

Agreed - not just pointless but impractical. For a family MI it's a different matter - again, to taste.

[McHooty]

Just my two penny worth;

I also use a Memorial Fact coupled with a Monumental Inscription Source Template. The inscription itself is entered into Text from Source tab and is picked up by the Fact Sentence.
Also in the Template a Type enum field lists the various possibilities of memorialization, Name for the person that the Fact relates to, Date if I visit the grave etc., Place for the Churchyard/Cemetery etc., Plot No. if relevant/known and GPS co-ordinates for all memorials that I visit.

[johnhanson]

Monumental Inscription would be better as "Gravestone" could be misleading if used for the memorial plaque inside a church

[Mark1834]

I have been reviewing my Commonwealth War Graves Commission sources (which have their own custom template) to add the original documents that are being uploaded.

Individual sources can support either a standard Burial fact if there is a known grave (e.g. shot down air-crew), or a custom Memorial fact where it is one name of many with no known grave (e.g. lost at sea).

[NickWalker]

One of the things about 'standard' graves for people who are actually buried beneath is that usually the inscription has a date of death, not burial. So the way AS will handle this I think is to offer to generate a burial fact which will have the Place/Address as the graveyard with an option to estimate the burial date as X number of days after death (e.g. 3) and to offer to generate a death fact (or offer to amend an existing death fact) with the date of death but without the place/address (unless this is mentioned on the stone of course). I'll also offer the option to use a custom fact to record that an MI exists for them as has been suggested.

[Little.auk]

One of the things about 'standard' graves for people who are actually buried beneath is that usually the inscription has a date of death, not burial. So the way AS will handle this I think is to offer to generate a burial fact which will have the Place/Address as the graveyard with an option to estimate the burial date as X number of days after death (e.g. 3) and to offer to generate a death fact (or offer to amend an existing death fact) with the date of death but without the place/address (unless this is mentioned on the stone of course). I'll also offer the option to use a custom fact to record that an MI exists for them as has been suggested.

A gravestone is a source - the only Facts that can be derived from it are what are shown on the inscription - plus the date and place it was seen.

The burial date belongs on the Burial fact, not in the gravestone source (unless the gravestone records it). There is no place for estimates on source citations.

The AS Burial template has a field for burial date - which is where it belongs - whether it be a true date or an estimate (guess).

Note - the AS Baptism template has a field for date of birth, because the Parish Record for baptism sometimes shows it (but usually doesn't). I would only ever use this field if it did.

[lesleyl]

I know that I'm late to the party!
This would be a great addition to AS, but I'm hoping that it will be able to accommodate the tomb-style memorials which often have inscriptions on each side (of which I have several).
Perhaps there could be an option to "Add Another" to allow the panels to be added separately, but kept under the same source?

[NickWalker]

If a gravestone has 'Here lies the body of'. Then the source is saying that they were buried there. So quite reasonably this can lead to a burial fact being created with the place/address recorded. As I said the estimated date would be optional. People record data in different ways, just because you don't use an estimated date for this (despite the estimate being almost certainly correct to within a few days) doesn't mean that others don't do this.

There is no place for estimates on source citations.

So presumably if the only source you had that referred to a particular individual was a death record with an age (or a census record with an age) that you wouldn't create a birth fact with an estimated/calculated year of birth? I would certainly do that and that birth's only citation would be to the death record (or census record). If at a later time I did find a birth record then I'd refine the birth date and add this citation to the birth fact. I'm sure a lot of people work that way and others don't, but whichever choice people make isn't wrong in my opinion.

Note - the AS Baptism template has a field for date of birth, because the Parish Record for baptism sometimes shows it (but usually doesn't). I would only ever use this field if it did.

Yes that's correct you shouldn't record data in the source record if it isn't there. But when you save the baptism record AS will ask if you want to create an estimated birth date based on the baptism date given. But you may have turned off that option.

Cheers

Nick

[NickWalker]

I know that I'm late to the party!
This would be a great addition to AS, but I'm hoping that it will be able to accommodate the tomb-style memorials which often have inscriptions on each side (of which I have several).
Perhaps there could be an option to "Add Another" to allow the panels to be added separately, but kept under the same source?

Hi Lesley. To be honest I'm not really sure how I'd be able to implement that. I think in that case you would either use one source for it (treating it as one memorial) or create multiple sources for each side (treating each as separate memorials).

[Gary_G]

I know that I'm late to the party!
This would be a great addition to AS, but I'm hoping that it will be able to accommodate the tomb-style memorials which often have inscriptions on each side (of which I have several).
Perhaps there could be an option to "Add Another" to allow the panels to be added separately, but kept under the same source?

Hi Lesley. To be honest I'm not really sure how I'd be able to implement that. I think in that case you would either use one source for it (treating it as one memorial) or create multiple sources for each side (treating each as separate memorials).

Nick;

I "think" I understood what you were trying to say, but let me just try to reflect it back to see if I actually understood. Maybe the use of the word "sources" just clouds the issue for me. Hope I've understood you correctly.

The headstone, footstone, monument, plaque or whatever, is typically one physical entity, but one could have taken multiple pictures to capture all the info on it. This could be because a memorial wall might be too long or a monument may have multiple sides. I have many of these, too. However; this doesn't really change the reality of the basic A.S. design concept, which (with the exception of a census) captures data for one person per input screen (set). One still has to map that one name to a one physical instance on the monument. So; it stands to reason that covering more than one name on a monument will require multiple uses of the A.S. input screen. However; each name entered could be mapped to same image or to a separate image for the monument. It all depends on how the user imaged the monument.

For me; the key reason for not trying to make A.S. handle monuments as it does census returns is that families usually have a limited number of members. A memorial wall, on the other hand, can often have hundreds. I can't imagine A.S. input screens trying handle to more than about the dozen or so that one might find in a census. That is; unless one "cherry-picks" the entries and then, how would you set the limit for A.S.?

[NickWalker]

AS is generally about recording sources that refer to individuals in your family historian project. You may of course have occasional people in sources that you record with AS where you don't create them as individuals such as marriage witnesses or lodgers in a census, etc. but that will usually be just a handful of people per source. In the same way I really couldn't imagine many people would use Family Historian to create an individual record for every name on a war memorial. AS MIs will theoretically allow you to enter hundreds of people but I don't think that would be practical really. If what you're wanting to do is just transcribe who is mentioned on the memorial but without creating individual records then there's not much point using AS to do that.

I had assumed Lesley was referring to a family grave with writing on both sides or 4 sides (which AS will handle), rather than a memorial wall.

I "think" I understood what you were trying to say, but let me just try to reflect it back to see if I actually understood. Maybe the use of the word "sources" just clouds the issue for me.

.
All I was trying to say to Lesley was that you could choose to have the source be the whole tomb (e.g. all 4 sides transcribed and photos of all sides attached) or you could decide to treat each side as a separate source. Personally I'd go for the first option but that is user choice.

[ravenssylv]

Hi Monumental Inscriptions works for me cant wait to start using it .