M*CH*MORE One Name Study

CONVENTIONS

The following conventions are used for the spelling of surnames and for dates and text notes in the family data.

Surname spelling

Surnames are always spelt in capitals (except for the 'c' in McDONALD, etc.). Any name spelt in lower case except for a capital initial letter is a forename.

Up to about 1850, when most M*CH*MOREs were illiterate, the spelling of a person's name was at the whim of the recorder and therefore often changed from record to record. We have adopted the convention of using the spelling in the first known record—usually the baptism. Where the surname is spelt differently in a subsequent record, or in the transcription of that record, the actual spelling is shown in parentheses at the end of the record.

Dates
  date date as stated in church register*, civil registration certificate or personal communication
  [date] date as stated in International Genealogical Index (IGI)
  yyyy.q year and quarter as stated in the UK Civil Registration Index
  (date) estimated date, usually calculated from age stated in a census or on a death certificate (probably accurate to within one or two years)
  yyyx estimated date, based on date of marriage, date of birth of spouse or children, etc. (probably accurate to within 10 years)
  yyxx estimated date, based on a record (will, burial, electoral role etc.) which contains no statement of age (accurate to within 100 years)
 

*Before 1752, the calendar year began on 25 March. For example, church registers included what we would now consider to be 24Feb1743 in 1742. On this site, we use the common convention of referring to this date as 24Feb1742/43.

 

Text notes
  (text) name spelling, when different from a person's stated name (forenames, surname or both)
  [text] editorial comment
  text? best guess at transcribing text