Data Conventions - Dates [Resolved]

[Robert Fletcher]

After working on my family history for about the last five years I am going through my records to make sure that everything is compliant. I am sure that I have been using the "abt" prefix incorrectly. But I cannot track down any authority of documentation that would answer this question. So here is the case:

According to the GRO indexes John Doe was born in the second quarter of 1851. In the past I have recorded this as "abt Jun 1851"  this would seem to be an incorrect use of the "abt" prefix. The reason being is that we do have a date range for John Doe so would this be better recorded as "Bet. 01 Apr–20 Jun 1851" if on the other hand we have documentation that says John Doe done was born in May 1851 but does not give an exact date then we should simply record this as "May 1851" as it is neither about between before any dates.

Any member is kind enough to and serve this, I would appreciate the references to using these conventions.

Thank you, Robert

[aghadowey]

"According to the GRO indexes John Doe was born in the second quarter of 1851."
The quarter actually refers to the date the even was registered, not the date of birth.

[stanmapstone]

As you normally had 42 days to register the birth, someone born in November 1890 could have had the birth registered in the Mar ¼ 1891. However under the 1836 Act a birth could be registered up to six months after the birth, and under the 1874 Act up to twelve months after the birth.

Stan

[Sloe Gin]

If all I have is the GRO index and nothing more detailed, I simply put Q1 (or 2,3,4) and the year.  Using this format makes it clear (to me at least!) that the reference is to registration of the event, and not the event itself.   

Admittedly it can sometimes be a bit out with births, but will almost always be fairly accurate with deaths, and should be spot on with marriages.  There are tons of marriages in my tree of distant twigs, for whom I will probably never find the exact date, and that doesn't bother me too much.

[johnxyz]

I have done the same as Sloe Gin - YYYYQN. I'll admit it is a registration date only by implication, but I can't think of any other context in which such a format would be used.

[Robert Fletcher]

Not quite what I was looking for. So I will put this more succinctly. The convention of abt, bet and bef. What is a professionals approach?

Writing Q1 or other format is not accepted in Legacy or FTM

Reference please.

Robert...

[Sloe Gin]

Not quite what I was looking for. So I will put this more succinctly. The convention of abt, bet and bef. What is a professionals approach?

Writing Q1 or other format is not accepted in Legacy or FTM

Reference please.

Robert...

I am sure that some "professionals" must use Family Historian, which does include the quarter format as an option.

[johnxyz]

And if you want to get serious, ISO 8601. I doubt many programmes will accept its year first, eg 2012-11-26, format.

[danuslave]

Writing Q1 or other format is not accepted in Legacy or FTM

I use Legacy deluxe and have dates like 1858 Q1 in it!  It sometimes complains about date formats but, if you persist, you can usually put them in

Ancestry use 'abt' when a year is calculated from a census date and an age

Linda