APG-L Archives

Archiver > APG > 2004-01 > 1073845455


From: Mary Jane Smith <>
Subject: [APG] Re: APG-D Digest V04 #8
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:28:51 -0500
In-Reply-To: <200401110400.i0B406gk003569@lists2.rootsweb.com>


Nancy,

Re: Your question about the discrepancy between civil records for the birth
month of New Orleans Catholics, 18th century.

Having some experience with these records, the first thing that came to my
mind was the question of the civil servant's knowledge of French (and I
assume the same would apply to records of other cultures written in other
languages). Not knowing anything about your own familiarity with French,
"n." on a baptismal record is not the baptismal date, but the birth date;
equally, "b." is not the birth date, but the baptismal
date. Confused? Imagine the civil servant who may care less about the
difference and just go with "b." = birth and ignore the "n." date as
irrelevant to his/her task. Again, if the original recorder was a priest
newly from France (or Spain, etc.) they may still be doing dates in the
Europe an order, numerically (5/10/1862 is not May 5th of that year, but
October 5).

Check the church records, which generally are very good. If they have
published their register of sacramental events, as the Archdiocese of New
Orleans has done, find the volume for the year of your interest and be sure
to read the explanatory Introduction and Preface of each book (changes were
made by different editors/compilers) before looking up your person. Once
found, write to the address given for a certified abstract of the
certificate (they no longer issue copies of the originals but, in my
experience, the researchers are well-trained archivists and do a
conscientious job). If your person is not listed in the church records for
some reason, but you can identify the parish in which his/her parents lived
at the time of birth, write to the current pastor giving all known
information. If you are able to do on-site research, study the pattern of
the cleric who made the entries in the parish register to determine what he
means by his abbreviations or the style of his date entries. If you see a
5/13/1862 then you know that he uses the American style of date entry, but
the European if it were written 13/5/1862; reexamine the date given for
your person with that in mind. If you receive a copy of the original in
another language, you are more limited in what you can do long distance,
but perhaps an e-mail or phone call to the pastor could clear that up too.

Sacramental Records of the Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of New
Orleans, Volumes 1 - 12 (1718-1817) available at the Loc, DAR Library, and
New Orleans Public Library and perhaps elsewhere. Write to Department of
Sacramental Registers, Archdiocese of New Orleans, 1100 Chartres Street,
N.O., LA 70116-2596.

The archdiocese covers eight civil parishes: Orleans, Jefferson,
Paquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany,
and Washington. You might also want to look into the "umpty-umpty" (how's
that for a nice genealogical term?) books in the series by Rev.
Hebert (there is an "accent aigu" on the first "e" that my e-mail can't
produce) of all sacramental records in the southwestern part of
Louisiana. There is also Elizabeth Shown Mills' excellent work on
Nachitoches, easily found through the usual techniques.

Hope this helps.

Mary Jane

anoth


At 09:00 PM 1/10/2004 -0700, you wrote:
>APG-D Digest Volume 04 : Issue 8
>
>Today's Topics:
> #1 [APG] Re: Name Registry? []
> #2 [APG] GenTech [Jan Davenport
> <]
> #3 [APG] Baptismal Date vs. Birth Dat ["Nancy Coleman"
> <.]
> #4 Re: [APG] Baptismal Date vs. Birth [Ray Beere Johnson II
> <]
>
>Administrivia:
>To unsubscribe from APG-D, send a message to
>
>
>
>that contains in the body of the message the command
>
> unsubscribe
>
>and no other text. No subject line is necessary, but if your software
>requires one, just use unsubscribe in the subject, too.
>
>______________________________X-Message: #1
>Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 22:57:10 EST
>From:
>To:
>Message-ID: <>
>Subject: [APG] Re: Name Registry?
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>
>Mary Jane:
>
>The GENTECH Lexicon Working Group did the data modeling and defined the term
>"persona." See http://www.gentech.org/gdm/
>
>I think Jerry was proposing "hypothetical person" as an easily understood
>working equivalent, for purposes of the registry at least, that wouldn't need
>explanation each time it was used.
>
>Donn Devine
>
>Mary Jane smith wrote:
>
> > Jerry and Donn -- Any way you two can get together and do some data
> > analysis? It sounds to this old data analyst that you need first to
>define
> > your terms; i.e., who or what is a "persona?", a "hypothetical?" and so
> > forth, and then do some data modeling. (No, I am not volunteering,
> but it
> > does sound like a good idea.) As one trying to sort various John Smiths
>in
> > Virginia, I will be interested to hear your results.
>
>______________________________X-Message: #2
>Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 07:24:56 -0600
>From: Jan Davenport <>
>To:
>Message-Id: <>
>Subject: [APG] GenTech
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>
>We are still in need of volunteers for the booth at Gen Tech. Many
>Thanks, Jan D.
>
>
>
>Friday January 23rd
>10:am- 11:30am
>11:30am - 1:00pm
>1:00pm - 2:30pm
>2:30pm - 4:00pm
>4:00pm - 5:00pm
>4:30pm - 6:00 pm
>Saturday January 4th,
>8:30am - 10:00am
>10:00am-11:30am
>11:30am - 1:00pm
>1:00pm - 2:30 pm
>2:30pm- 4:00 pm
>
>______________________________
>
>X-Message: #3
>Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:50:46 -0500
>From: "Nancy Coleman" <>
>To:
>Message-ID: <004601c3d799$ea7bdce0$>
>Subject: [APG] Baptismal Date vs. Birth Date, New Orleans, LA
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="Windows-1252"
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>
>Hope to get some clear advice... This may be an obvious and stupid
>question, but here goes.
>
>In doing very preliminary research (have just started this branch) in New
>Orleans records and with censuses, I have found a pattern of
>discrepancies. I have civil birth records with one date of birth and then
>further records (1900 census for instance) where the year may be the same
>(or not) but the month is completely different. The family(ies) involved
>are Catholic and of a mix of Irish, Spanish, and French heritage.
>
>I can understand the year being off, that's not unusual if they lied about
>their age. I find that all the time in NYC records. But, why would they
>change the month of birth? Was it common practice to cite one's baptismal
>date as a date of birth instead of the actual date of birth? This seems
>to be the rule, not the exception with many branches of this family. Not
>just one or two people, but dozens and dozens. Male and female. All seem
>to cite a date of birth as being several months, if not years, after the
>actual civil record. The month rarely matches up. Common sense tells me
>they may be citing their baptismal date... ???
>
>The time period is the last quarter of the 19th century, New Orleans,
>Catholic. The family names are very unusual and all civil birth records
>cite the proper parents, including the correct maiden names of the
>mothers. All alternate spellings or possible misspellings have been
>checked. All death records have also been searched to check for possible
>second children by the same name due to a death of the first child by that
>name. Nothing.
>
>If this is common practice, I'd sure like to know as it will make looking
>for the church records that much easier! I haven't started that phase
>yet. It will also help me cite the various dates and sources with a
>better understanding of their accuracy and whether the discrepancies mean
>anything (significant) or not. Since I'm just starting this branch of the
>family I would certainly like to get off on the right foot and gain an
>understanding of any peccadilloes that I may encounter in LA records. :)
>
>Best regards. Nancy.
>Nancy Coleman
>
>http://www.genealogyPro.com/ncoleman.html
>
>______________________________X-Message: #4
>Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:40:44 -0800 (PST)
>From: Ray Beere Johnson II <>
>To:
>Message-ID: <>
>Subject: Re: [APG] Baptismal Date vs. Birth Date, New Orleans, LA
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>
>Nancy;
> I had to deal with a family like this; my
>wife's. Read on for details.
> > Hope to get some clear advice... This may be
> > an obvious and stupid question, but here goes.
>
>Neither obvious nor stupid from where I stand; I
>still don't have any explanation for the way one
>particular family behaved. There were a few
>similarities to your family.
>
> > with censuses, I have found a pattern of
> > discrepancies. I have civil birth records with
> > one date of birth and then further records
> > (1900 census for instance) where the year may
> > be the same (or not) but the month is
> > completely different. The family(ies) involved
> > are Catholic and of a mix of Irish, Spanish,
> > and French heritage.
> >
> > I can understand the year being off, that's not
> > unusual if they lied about their age. I find
> > that all the time in NYC records. But, why
> > would they change the month of birth? Was it
>
> The family I was concerned with was
>Catholic, and was French-Canadian, Irish, and
>Native American. From at least 1880 through the
>1920s, few records for this family agreed on
>anything! I have never personally worked on
>another family like it. I personally checked the
>original birth records, and noted the dates
>given. These were NOT the same dates the family
>celebrated as their birthdays, according to the
>one family member still living. He was dying of
>cancer, and not able to provide an explanation of
>why this was so. The dates listed by the Social
>Security Administration for births of ALL
>deceased members of this family did not match the
>dates in the original birth records. I don't
>think the dates matched those of baptism in the
>Catholic Church either, although I didn't check
>this out thoroughly so cannot say for certain.
>What I did note in this family was a disregard
>for details, and a lack of concern with official
>records. First names were "loose" also (Beatrice
>was called "Bernice", Frances was called
>"Francine", etc.). I assumed they just didn't
>care about the details, but can't prove that
>assumption, obviously.
> I can readily understand why the problem
>drives you crazy. I still cannot locate the death
>of one family member with a common name, as I
>have no idea what date of birth to look under in
>the SSDI; someday I will have to check out each
>of about a hundred and fifty possible matches...
> Ray
>
>
>=====
>Ray Beere Johnson II - Genealogist
>279 East Central Street, Suite 259
>P. O. Box 95
>Franklin, Massachusetts 02038
>
>
>FAX: 508-541-6788
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
>http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus

Mary Jane Frances Smith,
Pres., NCAC/APG;
Independent Writer/Editor
<>



This thread: