Child's first name - 1853 baptism record

[mtmcdonough]

Hi.  I am an old genealogy volunteer working on an 1853-1883 Catholic combo book of baptisms and marriages that was never indexed.  It appears I am to index about 6,800 baptisms and 1,750 marriages.  I am somewhat familiar with Latin and church records.  Others will check my work.  For this particular child, I think I have the family name and at least the beginning of her first name.  Given the size of this indexing task, I honestly cannot spend all that much time on any one child/person.  Thanks for your comment.  I'll keep it in mind.

[manukarik]

Even though I see he may be a tea-na-bowla from Booragtoon which I hasten to add are a very distinguished body of folk!😁

Haha! And I'm a Gollach that works with Dirdie Weekers! Far ye fae? Ah I see - so not that far as the bird flies!

[Calleva]

My wife is a Dirdie Weeker! She suggested it could depend on whether the bird is a feikie, Cawnach or a Water Pleep..

She also said most would think I was a Feb from my accent but wouldn’t explain further for some reason.

[Wexflyer]

Thank you.  I'll record Alebesia....

In a case like this, wouldn't the safe thing to do be simply record the original Latin?
Rather than a hypothetical, uncertain guess as to a translation?

[manukarik]

 Calleva

Wexflyer Makes sense!

[JenB]

Thank you.  I'll record Alebesia....

I don’t understand why you’d do this. The first rule of transcription is to record what appears on the page.

[Calleva]

Agree with a caveat that mtmcdonough can add narrative in the record being prepared to explain as I fear some confusion could be caused otherwise particularly as Dog Latin was used in this instance.

Strikes me if this approach was strictly applied without explanation, other names from the original documents being researched would be lost or changed, I think we are safe ground with Elizabeth’ from ’Elizabetham’ for example. ‘Janam’ however could be Jane, Janet, Jan et al. but certainly not baptised as Janam!

Don’t mean to interfere but maybe a generic explanation in the introduction to the new index being prepared if it’s not possible to attribute to individual entries?

Good luck to the researcher in their work. The overall approach sounds good including having checks by others.

[mtmcdonough]

Thank you. This is not a professional indexing by any means.  I am just helping a genealogical society that has this large combination book covering 1853-1883 in digital form and with no indexing at all.  As I said, other professional staff will check my work.  I'm guessing that I'm about 75 percent accurate in the first and last names I am recording.  The handwriting is difficult, the pages are washed out, some pages are damaged, odd first and last names are recorded, etc.  I'd like to complete this task before I turn 80 but no guarantees!  Thanks to all for your comments and encouragement.