Dai & Angela's Family History

  Frequently Asked Questions.

1. Who are all the names on a page from your tree?
2. Why do some husbands or wives show as hyperlinks, while others do not?
3. Why do some families have children shown only as "son" or "daughter"?
4. Why do some dates have "ca." in front of them?
5. Why do you show a birth as ca. Aug yyyy, when I know the real date of birth was in June?
6. Why do some people have several spellings of their name?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Who are all the names on a page from your tree?

The tree pages are modified versions of those generated by Sierra's 'Generations' software.  This table should explain the relationships between the various names:

(Link to) Husband's Father	(Link to) Wife's Father
(Link to) Husband's Mother	(Link to) Wife's Mother

 Date and place of marriage

Husband	Wife
Dates of husband's birth, christening, death and/or burial. Also his occupation and any other names by which he was (or is) known	Dates of wife's birth, christening, death and/or burial. Also her occupation and any other names by which she was (or is) known

Links to other spouse(s) (if any)

Children

(Links to) Known children of this husband and wife





2. Why do some husbands or wives show as hyperlinks, while others do not?
We have gathered a considerable amount of information on a small number of people in our tree. The tree itself does not have room for all this information, so some of the more interesting stories have been put on separate pages.  This is particularly true of those who had military careers.

3. Why do some families have children shown only as "son" or "daughter"?
To protect the privacy of people who are still living, their names have been withheld and replaced with "son" or "daughter". We do have information on these later generations, and if you can add anything we would love to hear from you.

4. Why do some dates have "ca." in front of them?
Many of the dates were gathered from the quarterly indexes published by the General Record Office (GRO). These indexes do not give the exact date of birth, marriage or death.  Thus we only know that the event was registered in the March quarter (Jan-Feb-Mar), June quarter (Apr-May-Jun), September quarter (Jul-Aug-Sep) or December quarter (Oct-Nov or Dec).  "ca." means circa, or about.   Unfortunately we have used two different conventions in different parts of the trees.  The Griffin tree indicates events found in a particular quarter as ca. (that quarter) - i.e. ca. Jun yyyy, ca. Dec yyyy etc., while elsewhere the event is shown as ca. (middle month of quarter) i.e. ca May yyyy, ca Nov yyyy etc.  We really should get round to correcting this, but it never seems to make it to the top of our priorities.

5. Why do you show a birth as ca. Aug yyyy, when I know the real date of birth was in June?
The GRO indexes show the quarter in which registration took place.  Marriages are usually registered on the day they occur, so there is usually no discrepancy.  Deaths, however, are often registered one or more days after the event, while births can be registered up to a month after the date of birth.  Hence sometimes the registration can take place in the quarter after the event.  This is most often seen for births, but sometimes too for deaths.

6. Why do some people have several spellings of their name?
Before the 20th century, many people were unable to read or write.  Their name was written by someone who had asked them their name.  This was written as the writer thought best.  Remember that accents vary considerably, even over a relatively short distance, and hence is even more of a problem when people move around the country. This we see not only Gilborn, Gilburn, Gillborn, Gillbourne, Gilborne, but also Gilman, Gillman. None  of the spellings should be regarded as 'right' or 'wrong', but as literacy improved, we find that a smaller number of spellings become standard.

 

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