An Idea!.....

[Jamboesque]

Folks,
Just a wee suggestion.

All Hobbies have their own techno-speak by which we shorten commonly used words, phrases and such like. Might it not make it easier and more comfortable for newbies if there was a thread (Possibly/Probably a Stickie) that was a Glossary of commonly used terms. Just staring with some TLA’s (Three Letter Acronym’s) might be useful. The resultant could look like some thing like.

OPR’s Old Parish Register’s : Record’d of Birth & Marriage/Banns held by local church’s prior to 1854 : Not greatly detailed.

IGI International Genealogical Index. : Huge body of genealogical data available via the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS). : Mostly free, mostly accurate.

This is just a wee sample of the how I think it could look.

Any Comments I think the subjective description may require some agreement before posting.(Apologies if this has been discussed and I’ve missed it!!!!)

[snowwhite77]

I think this is a great idea, There is nothing worse than feeling rather silly for not understanding what everyone else seems to and being to embarassed/shy to ask!

[AndrewP]

Well, gather the abbreviations together here first, then we can seek to put them together in some order.

For my tuppenceworth:
NRH = New Register House, Edinburgh, the home of GROS; and next door to General Register House. the home of NAS.
GROS = General Register Office for Scotland
NAS = National Archives of Scotland
SP = Scotlands People, the online source for some of the documents held by GROS and NAS.

More about these organisations and what documents each hold can be found on their websites.
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/
http://www.nas.gov.uk/
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

All the best,

Andrew Paterson

[Dennis]

Hi Andrew:)


Some real obvious ones:

MC Marriage Certificate
DC Death Certificate
BC Birth Certificate
DIGROS Digital Image General Register Office for Scotland


dennis

[Maud Jarvis]

Hi
I thinks thats a very good idea, I have gradually over the years, learned the meaning of quite a numbr of abbreviations, but I still get a bit a bit puzzled yet when someone uses any that I have not heard of, and it does make you feel a bit silly or thick, if you have to keep asking, what it means.

I know I`m a bit thick yet about many of the terms used in computer language, and I feel a bit of a fool to have to keep asking.
"Its like anything else, it only easy if you know how"

Of course the younger generation have been brought up in a computer age, but I`m afraid to my generation, its all very new, and not all that easy to grasp sraight away
I wonder how clever some of the bright young things of today would fare, if plonked in front of an old Underwood typewriter!!, and then be asked to strip it down for cleaning, and put it back together again, just imagine how they would react if they made a small typing error, and had to correct the error, especially if they had 6 flimsy carbon copies ! !especially before "Tipex" had been invented!! (would they even know what was meant by "flimsies" ?)

Or would they know how to prepare a document for a Banda copy?

Another thing that has also made me smile, is hearing of the people today who complain of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) goodness knows how they would have managed pounding away hour after hour on a heavy manual typewriter, At the end of the working day, my wrists used to ache like
mad when I was a teen-ager., and hands could be quite grubby after handling sheets of carbon paper.

I thought I was in heaven when I eventually used an electric typewriter, no heavy roller to have to keep manually pushing back, and hardly any effort required to push down the keys.

[Jamboesque]

Maud,

Did you have to strip it down and re-build it blindfold!
Or was that just the military wing of the Typing Pool…………

Another couple of Abbreviations

M I = Monumental Inscription : Record on the grave stone of whoever is interred and Date of burial, if you're lucky their age will also be noted.

Mort Cloth = The rental for a mortuary cloth (a piece of material draped of the coffin during a funeral, I think) is recorded in the Kirk Session Record’s and can identify when someone died, in pre-statutory days.

Jack

[AndrewP]

Mort Cloth = The rental for a mortuary cloth (a piece of material draped of the coffin during a funeral, I think) is recorded in the Kirk Session Record’s and can identify when someone died, in pre-statutory days.

Hi Jack,

The mortcloth records are usually in the OPRs along with the births and marriages, rather than in the Kirk Session records. These are not indexed as part of the IGI. In most cases, they hold little information, and it is often difficult to find enough information to prove it is the person whose death you are looking for. In the majority, these are a set of accounts.

It is not uncommon for a parish to own more than one mortcloth. You would see different costs accordingly - the child's mortcloth, the standard adult's mortcloth, and the "best" mortcloth. Yes, class distinction is there for the deceased - could the family afford the best mortcloth?

I believe ScotlandsPeople may eventually include an index for these, but it is well down the list.

All the best,

Andrew Paterson

[Jamboesque]

Andrew,

Thanks for the correction, I was told how the Mort Cloth system worked by one of the very nice people in the SGS = Scotish Genealogical Society up at Johnston Terrace and must have misheard/misinterpreted what I was told.

I seem to remember that, as you say, it is notorious to find people but it can be useful to support other evidence.

Again thanks.

Jack

[StewL]

Jamboesque

The stripping down of the typewriter blindfold was strictly a task for the military wing, I know.

I remember using the manual keyboard to learn typing in the navy, and in the comm centre for putting on the distribution list and other stuff on signals.

Ah! what I recall not so fondly was the blue ink from our copiers, they used metho, but the ink was ingrained in your skin, lovely in your bed too, the sheets had a blue tinge to them
Also really good when you had to put your whites on, everyone knew you were in communications, easy to spot with the blue tinged whites LOL.