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22 May 2015

Contextual Clues Mean It's Not a Part of a Name

The middle entry on this page of 1838 baptisms from Aurich, Germany contains the entry for my ancestor.

The fourth column contains the names of the sponsors. When I was trying to analyze the entry for my relative I thought the symbol in the middle red circle on the image were a part of the entry.

Then I looked at the other two entries on the image I made and realized that the items in the circle were partially used to number each entry and were not a part of the names of the sponsors.

If I had only copied the entry for my ancestor and not other entries on the same page, I might have missed that.

Don't copy only the entry of interest on a page like this. Copy other entries on the same page.

You can't made comparisons if you don't.

2 comments:

  1. I agree! And, sometimes, if a certain letter or number is difficult to read, you can figure it out by looking at other items on the page.

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  2. This is an excellent tip. I've found it true in my research as well. I've included it in my NoteWorthy Reads for this week: http://jahcmft.blogspot.com/2015/05/noteworthy-reads-14.html

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